/ 



If' 




ON THE LAKE AT VASSAR. 



THREE 



Vassar Girls 



ABROAD. 



RAMBLES OF THREE COLLEGE GLRLS ON A VACATLON TRLP 

THROUGH FRANCE AND SPALN FOR AMUSEMENT 

AND INSTRUCTION 

WITH THEIR HAPS AND MISHAPS. 



7 \ATL\K W. CHAMPNEY, 

AUTHOR OF "a NEGLECTED CORNER OF EUROPE," ETC. 



WITH NEARLY A HUNDRED AND FIFTY ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS BY "CHAVIP' 
(J. WELLS CHAMPNEY) AND OTHER DISTtNGUISHED ARTISTS. 



o>«tJc 




BOSTON: 

ESTES AND LAURIAT. 
1883. 



Copyright, 1882, 
By EsTES AND Lauriat. 



All RiMs Reseved. 




CONTENTS. 



I. Paris IS 

II. French Society ......... 36 

III. Joan of Arc's Town 56 

IV. An Historic Chateau 70 

V. Ocean and Mountains 80 

VI. Madrid 92 

VII. The Devotional Images of Spain 100 

VIII. Toledo 108 

IX. Cordova and the Caliphate 118 

X. Seville 127 

XI. Granada . . . I34 

XII. A Bouquet of Legends . . . . . . . 150 

XIII. Lisbon and Cintra 182 

XIV. The North of Portugal 199 

XV. A Glimpse at AfrIca 216 

XVI. Home Again 229 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



On the Lake at Vassar 

Through the Gorge 

The Grand Opera House 

"As she sat on a Grassy Hillside 

The Sainte Chapelle 

Palais de L'filys^e 

Porte St. Denis . 

" Which of the Three ? " . 

Palace of the Luxembourg . 

The Observatory . 

Dome des Invalides 

Hotel de Cluny 

The Donjon of Vincennes . 

" Not in Need of a Porter " 

Cabinet de Verdure 

Labyrinth of Versailles 

On the Train 

Chateau de Fontainebleau (View Taken 

from the Garden) 
Papa Le Prince and Cecilia . 
Chateau de Fontainebleau (the Oval 

Court) 
Chateau de Maintenon 
View of Chartres 
Joan in Prison 
Fifine as Bonne . 
The Baroness's Cousin 
Chateau du Moutier 
Chateau de Blois, East Side 
Chateau de Blois, from the North 
Murder of the Due de Guise 
A Window .... 
A Leaf from Maud's Sketch Book 
Making a Picture Herself . 



PAGE 

Frontispiece. 
14 



17 
21 

22 

23 
27 
28 
29 
30 
II 
37 
38 
40 

41 
45 
47 

50 
51 

54 
57 

59 
61 

64 
66 
67 
70 
71 
75 
79 
81 

83 



On I^uleback .... 
Death of Roland .... 

Pepita 

Charlemagne's School of the Palace 

Studying Velasquez 

The Library of the Escorial 

The Courier Explains . 

Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe 

Nuestra Senora del Pilar 

Nuestra Senora de Monserrat 

Nuestra Senora de La Merced 

Nuestra Senora de Toledo . 

Nuestra Senora d'Atocha 

Nuestra Senora de los Desemparados 

Nuestra Senora de Carmen . 

A Street in Toledo 

Interior Court at Toledo 

Interior of the Cathedral at Toledo 

Cardinal Ximenes . 

Annie Laurie .... 

Father St. lago Matamoras . 

A Murillo Altar Boy . 

The Giralda 

He Calls this an Artistic Creation 
Patio de la Alberca 

Charles V 

Fortuny's Model .... 
A Child's Funeral 
Looking over the Photographs 
The Generalife .... 
Tomb of Runjeet Sing 
Aladdin's Gate .... 
Palace of Copal Bhowan 
Pagoda of Chillambaran 



84 

8S 
88 
89 
94 
97 
99 
100 

lOI 

103 

IDS 
105 
106 
106 
107 
109 
112 

"3 
IIS 
119 
125 
129 
130 
131 
13s 
139 
141 
144 
145 
147 
151 
15s 
158 

159 



X 



ILL USTRA TIONS. 



Garden Gate of the Taj 

Interior Court, Tanjore 

Mausoleum, Golconda . 

Mosque, Triplican 

Fish Boy of Lisbon 

Lord Gubbins 

Castle of Penha de Cintra 

Donkey Boy at Cintra . 

Mafra .... 

Beggar .... 

Peasant Woman and Donjcey 

View of Oporto . 

A Leaf from Maud's Sketch Book 



PAGE 
163 
169 

186 

194 

197 
198 



" Beggars Might Ride " 

Ox Cart 

Cathedral of Guimaraes 

The Castle of Guimaraes 

Gateway 

Rock of Gibraltar 

Sketch in Gibraltar 

Bazaar in Tunis . 

A Santo 

Door of the Mosque of Bou 

Home at Last 

The Envelope 





PAGE 




204 




205 




207 




210 




214 




217 




219 




221 




223 


Medina . 


225 




232 


. 


. 232 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



/ 



PARIS. 2^ 

Mrs, Arnold could not understand how her sister could immure 
herself in a picture gallery, or Cecilia go prowling about in churches 
when the avenues presented such a merry out-of-door panorama 
of sunshine and color. Every afternoon she whirled them away in 
an open carriage through the Champs Elysees, past the Palais de 
I'Industrie, and the more interesting Palace de I'Elysee, once the 
fascinating residence of that most fascinating of women, Madame 
Pompadour, under the Arc de Triomphe to the Bois de Boulogne. 
Mrs. Arnold, though their senior, was far more frivolous than any one 
of the girls. She was a living proof of the absurdity of a chaperone 
for earnest American girls. Though she had visited France several 
times she spoke the language poorly, and was apt to lose her head as 
to locality or the exigencies of any sudden emergency. It was Saint 
who made inquiries of the officials and acted as general interpreter 
for the party. It was Barbara who consulted the map in the guide- 
book and led them straight through puzzling labyrinths to their 
desired destinations, and it was Maud who settled every point of 
social etiquette. Most frequently the decision came in the shape of a 
firm refusal. "We have not time, sister; if we were intending to 
remain a year or more, we might go into society, but as it is we cannot 
afford it." 

Mrs. Arnold was not, however, an easy person to thwart. She 
had numerous old friends in Paris with whom she exchanged cour- 
tesies, and she managed to convoy the girls to a number of evening 
receptions. There was a certain Madame Le Prince, connected in 
some way with the displaced nobility, who held salon in a fashionable 
quarter in Paris, to whose rooms she did not for some time succeed 
in enticing Maud, for Mrs. Arnold had unguardedly remarked that 
Madame Le Prince was looking for a -parti for her son, a young 
gentleman reduced by adverse circumstances to a commercial career, 
but who might, by a turn in the governmental machiner}^, mount to a 
title. Maud had taken alarm at once. 



25 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

"I will not be bartered for a title," she asserted, "and wild horses 
shall not drag: me to Madame Le Prince's soirees." 

" No one wishes to barter 3^ou, my dear," replied Mrs. Arnold 
coolly, " and I am sure it shows considerable self-complacency on 
your part to take it for granted that Madame Le Prince will desire 
you as a daughter-in-law." 

" She does not desire me or any particular young girl. What she 
w^ishes is a dowry — some young woman who shall bring her son a 
sufficient fortune to enable him to go out of trade and wait with 
dignity an elevation of rank which will probably never come. If you 
do not wish to suggest me or one of the other girls for that situation, 
our being there will look as if you did, and we shall be the talk 
of the American colony." 

"Don't get angr}^, Maud," replied Mrs. Arnold; "it makes your 
face red, and you have enough of that color in your hair. I can 
go to Madame Le Prince's without you, and we will not refer again 
to the subject." 

But she did refer to it again, most emphatically, as after chapters 
will show. 

Barbara was as delighted as a child with all that she was. She 
indulged in suppressed screams of delight at each new wonder, vv^hile 
Cecilia observed everything with a conscientious interest which 
seemed to consider it a duty to lose nothing and to mark that which 
was good, and a calm discrimination which brought evei*ything up 
for judgment before the highest standards. 

Maud was only interested in art. Everything else bored her, as 
she considered it so much time lost from her favorite pursuit. 

Barbara took a vivid delight in out-of-door Paris. She loved to 
linger in the Champs Elysees, and watch the delight of the children 
in the Theatre Guignol, the French Punch-and-Judy show. It 
seemed to her that the great obelisk in the Place de la Concorde 
could tell her many a legend if it cared, to do so, and she made it 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD, 



CHAPTER I. 

PARIS. 

THEY were three Vassar girls : Cecilia Boylston, Maud Van 
Vechten, and Barbara Atchison. They had moored their boat 
under the willows, and while other girls improved their hour of 
exercise by quick pulling up and down the pond, they discussed an 
important project in the privacy of their green-canopied, water-paved 
arbor. Vacation was approaching, and plans for the summer were 
now the absorbing topics of conversation. Maud sat in the stern, 
her pretty face silhouetted darkly against the radiant disc of a 
Japanese umbrella, which, with the sunlight filtering through, had 
all the effect of a rose-window. It was she who had called her two 
dearest friends to secret conclave to inform them that her arrange- 
ments were happily settled. She was to go to Europe with her sister, 
Mrs. Arnold, who proposed to spend the summer in travel, and to 
meet her husband, a naval officer, at Nice, in the winter. 

" I shall have to come back alone in the fall," said Maud, " for 
I would not fall out of our class for anything, and you know we'll 
be Juniors next year. Sister says there are always people returning 
from Europe in the fall, and she can easily find company for me." 

"I think you are the luckiest girl in the world, Maud," exclaimed 
Barbara Atchison; " here am I, with a lot of money, and nowhere to 



J 5 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

go. Father is stationed in the Black Hills, this summer, and he 
doesn't want me out there. He writes, ^ You have seen enough of 
Western society for the present. You are too old to be kept in the 
background as a child, and too young to do the honors of my house. 
If your mother had lived, home would have been the best place for 
3'ou; as it is, I wish you to profit by the civilizing influences of the 
East. You write enthusiastically of your New York friend; visit 
with her, this summer, and I will pay all expenses.' There it is, and 
my New York friend is going to Europe." 

"Why not come with me. Barb? " 

"Elegant! But would your sister take charge of such a harum- 
scarum thing as I am, a western officer's daughter, who has been 
brought up on the Plains and in forts? And is there time to write to 
Papa?" 

"Yes, yes, of course she would; and there's plenty of time. And, 
oh, Saint, w^on't you come too? " 

Saint was Cecilia's pet name. 

"I intended to go to Munich and continue my music, after we 
graduate," she replied, " and I would enjoy this summer trip 
immensely, but I am afraid I can't afford it." 

"Now, Saint, just look here!" exclaimed Barbara. "If we go 
without 3'ou, there will be three of us, a dreadfully odd number. 
We will have to pay just as much for carriages and rooms as if there 
were four; and I will have to room alone, which I detest. If you 
go, it will cheapen everything, and I insist on paying just what I 
would have to if 3'ou were not in the party. That will bring down 
your expenses somewhat. Then you are the only one of us that can 
speak French creditably. We need you, my dear, as interpreter. 
And what an improving influence you will have over me! When 
Papa hears that I am going abroad with a clergyman's daughter from 
Boston, he will believe that the civilizing influences have begun in 
good earnest." 



PARIS. jg 

"It would be delightful," mused St. Cecilia. " I wonder whether 
I would liave to buy a very expensive outfit in the way of clothes." 

" I shall get everything over there," replied Maud. " Sister Lily 
manages to go abroad at least every three years, so as to do all our 
shopping in Paris. Dresses are a bother while one is travelling, and 
you have a first-rate tourist's wardrobe; that Boston waterproof 
of yours will have occasion to flap its wings and crow over all our 
finery." 

The girls laughed at this allusion to Saint's waterproof, for it was 
a very characteristic bit of costume. Barbara declared that it com- 
pleted the mediaev^alism of her name, giving her the appearance of a 
nun, or a saint, in flowing gown of sackcloth. 

"You are not going to Germany. I shouldn't mind that, for I 
would like to see a little of other parts of Europe," said St. Cecilia, 
"and I'm almost sure of Germany after I graduate. I daresay, too,, 
that I can enjoy many musical advantages in France and Spain. 
There is the Grand Opera to begin with." 

"Yes, and think, Saint, there are cathedrals, and stained glass, 
and old masters! Dear me! I don't see how you can hesitate for 
a moment." 

And Saint did not hesitate long. A favorable letter came from 
the Rev. Mr. Boylston, and early in July the three merry maids looked 
out from their windows at the Hotel de Louvre, at the imposing pile 
opposite. " I am so glad," said Maud, " that Lily chose the Hotel de 
Louvre, for now we have but to cross the street to reach the galleries, 
and I expect to spend most of my time while in Paris there. Think 
of the art treasures! Girls, the Venus of Milo is in that lower gallery 
of sculpture. Raphael's Belle Jardiniere, Da Vinci's .oly Family, 
Veronese's Marriage of Cana,Murillo's Immaculate Conception, Titian's 
Entombment! Then there is the Rubens Gallery, and the long array 
of French painters that we know so well by reputation. I shall take 
my sketch-box over and paint every morning." 



20 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

" Now, Maud," interrupted Mrs. Arnold, " this trip was for 
pleasure, you know, not work. There are the parks and the theatres, 
the shops and societ}^ We have only two weeks for Paris, and we 
must make the most of our opportunities." 

" I will do what you choose, sister, in the afternoon and evening, 
but every morning I shall reserve for the Louvre Galleries. I must 
carry away a few souvenirs of the treasures which it contains." 

Their first evening was spent at the Grand Opera. This was 
almost as great a delight to the other girls as to Cecilia, for, while she 
revelled in the music and was oblivious to all outward things, Maud's 
artistic eye gained keen delight from Baudry's frescoes in ih^ foyer 
or promenade hall, and from the superb architectural effects of the 
exterior. Barbara too, who had a somewhat crude love for obvious 
magnificence, gloated over the general effect. " Now this is what I 
call a palace," she said, as she stood before the grand staircase. " I 
don't believe the Grand Monarque ever dreamed of such gorgeousness. 
Positively, it is so beautiful that it makes one forget to look at the 
ladies' dresses." This was the summit of effect for Barbara, whose 
love for display in dress was so barbarian that the girls sometimes 
said that she was rightly named. In reality, Barbara's startling 
costumes were onl}^ experiments in search of the beautiful. She had 
not inherited fine taste, or been brought up to walk between the strait 
hedgerows of artistic requirements like Maud, and she knew nothing 
of the culture and philosoph}^ which had shaped Cecilia's life. Her 
nature was groping blindly, like a wild vine reaching out eager 
tendrils towards some high object of aspiration. Ever3lhing heroic 
and noble elicited her admiration, and her heart was as tender as it 
was true. 

The party made an excursion one day to Ecouen, as Maud wished 
to visit the studios of the artist colony there. Barbara was as enthu- 
siastic as any of the party over the gentle-faced mothers and sweet 
children in Frere's genre pictures, and over all the varying styles of 



PARIS. 



21 



the younger artists who have clustered around this great man. But 
she knew that she was admiring a talent in which she had no part; 
and as she sat on a grassy hillside under the old Chateau of Mont- 
morency, looking away over the fresh country landscape to the spires 
and domes of Paris, she thought to herself, " How satisfying it must 
be to have a purpose in life like Maud's, to be an artist or a musician 
like Saint. Now I have 
no specialty, no particular 
talent. Perhaps I will find 
one during this tour." A 
bit of a poem by George 
Herbert occurred to her 
and she breathed it as a 
prayer : 



" Lord, place me in Thy concert, 
Give one note to my poor reed." 



Barbara often accompa- 
nied Saint in her ecclesio- 
logical pilgrin^ages, and 
puzzled her brain, vainly 
attempting to trace differ- 
ent styles of architecture. \\^ 
St. Cecilia had a passion 
for churches. The one - ' 
she loved in Paris, second 
only to Notre Dame was "^^ ^^^ ^^"^ °^ ^ grassy hillside." 
the Sainte Chapelle. It is a dainty, graceful building, with arrowy 
spire, and many pinnacles pointing their silent fingers upward. It 
has been called "the completest specimen of the religious archi- 
tecture of the middle of the thirteenth century." It was built by 
St. Louis to receive the relics which he brought from the Holy 




22 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



Land, and is hardly more than a beautifully chased and orna- 
mented reliquary. The Cathedral of Notre Dame was more im- 
pressive, and Cecilia, who was familiar with Victor Hugo's novels, 
felt, when she reached it, that she had met with an old friend. 
Its superb flying buttresses, its rainbow windows, the two great 

towers with their quaint 
gargoyles and clashing 
bells, the rose windows 
like a rosette of jewels on 
the breast of a general, the 
awe-inspiring aisles and 
the uplifting music of the 
organs were all as familiar 
as though she had known 
them long ago. The ca- 
thedral stands on the island 
of La Cite, in the middle 
of the Seine, which in turn 
divides Paris the old from 
Paris the new. On the left 
bank of the Seine is the 
Latin Quarter, with its old 
universities, crooked and 
narrow streets, and time- 
blackened houses. It is 
the Paris of which Eugene 
Sue and the older drama- 
tists and novelists wrote, 
and has all the mouldy 

THE SAINTE CHAPELLE. i^^^rQX of aucicut timCS. 

On the right is the gay sparkling Paris of the present, with its wide 
boulevards, enticing shops, resplendent palaces, and superb parks. 




PARIS. 



27 



a little speech concerning its huge brother in Central Park, for there 
seemed something pathetic to her in the way they had wandered 
awav from sunny Egypt to be so far separated in the end. 
Enchanting Pare Monceaux, with its glancing fountains and curious 




PORTE ST. DENIS. 

grottoes, was, perhaps, her favorite resort, but she had an infinite 
respect for all the historical monuments which Cecilia explained to 
her; the Porte St. Denis which commemorates the victories of 
Louis XIV. in the Netherlands 3 the Column which marks the place 



28 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



of the Bastile, and the Column Vendome which celebrates Napo- 
leon's victories. Barbara had been specially commissioned by her 
father to look up all memorials of Napoleon. She kept putting the 
duty off, as the days whirled by, making meagre notes now and then 
of his coronation at Notre Dame, of the Column Vendome, and of 
such chance scraps as came in her way. " When we go out to 
Versailles," Maud assured her, "you will find no end of historical 
pictures which will celebrate every event in his career." 

One afternoon, when the three girls were together in the Champs 
Elysees, Barbara called Maud's attention to a melancholy individual 
seated in a drooping attitude upon one of the benches. " He is m}^ 

ghost," she said. "Wherever I go, I see 
that dejected and unhappy man. I am 
sure that he is an American and dread- 
fully homesick. Whatever brought him 
to Europe I can't imagine." 

" I meet him frequently, too," re- 
marked Saint. 

"And I," added Maud. "I believe, 
from the crape around his hat, that he is 
a widower, and that he is deeply ab- 
sorbed in contemplating which of us 
girls he will take." 

The other girls laughed heartily in 
spite of the absurdity of the idea, and 
the innocent old man became the theme of much sport. 

One pleasant day, the three girls set out for the Latin Quarter 
together. Maud carried her Japanese parasol and sketch-box, which 
made her quite as marked a figure as St. Cecilia in her waterproof 
and near-sighted glasses, and Barbara, as was usual on such occa- 
sions, was armed with a vermilion-bound guide-book. The guide- 
book Barbara insisted on carr^nng everywhere, even into churches. 




WHICH OF THE THREE ? 



PARIS. 



29 



much to Saint's annoyance, who suggested one clay that Barbara 
might at least respect people's feelings sufficiently to have her 
beloved Baedeker bound as a Bible or prayer-book. 

On this occasion, the girls had each a special point in view, but 
had agreed to do all three in company. Cecilia wished to hear the 
Stabat Mater at St. Sulpice, and Barbara and Maud duly accompanied 




PALACE OF THE LUXEMBOURG. 

her, though the former could not resist sly peeps into her guide-book,- 
and Maud made a surreptitious sketch of a Madonna which hung 
over one of the side altars. When they came out they all paused 
before the imposing fountain in front of the church. 

" It says," said Barbara, who always referred thus to her guide, 
"that these statues represent the four most celebrated preachers in 
France, Bossuet, Fenelon, Massillon, and Flechier." 



30 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



"I wonder why they placed them guard over a fountain?" Maud 
queried, carelessly. 

"Why, I think it very appropriate," replied Barbara, seriously; 
" they were such great spouters, you know." 




THE OBSERVATORY. 



" Barb, Barb, you are too bad," groaned Saint. 

"Barb is like a fountain herself," laughed Maud; "you can't 
keep her from gushing. What are you girls going to do while I 
begin my study in the Luxembourg?" 

" We will wander about in that lovely garden," replied Barbara. 

They strolled along the terrace among the statues of women 



PARIS. ^j 

celebrated in the history of France, and tried to guess how Marie de 
Medicis felt when she saw the building completed according to her 
wish. Veterans were sunning themselves on benches beside the wall, 
and pretty children were sporting among the roses and carnations of 
the garden. Suddenly Saint noticed a dome-crowned building at 
the end of one of the avenues. "I do believe, Barb," she exclaimed, 
" that that is the observatory." 

" How lucky that I brought my Baedeker," murmured Barbara, 
as she opened the guide-book, and proceeded, still walking, to consult 
it. "Yes, it is the observatory; do you want to visit it? " 

"Yes, indeed, if they will let us." 

" We can at least try." 

But the little grille or iron gate was fast locked, and the portress 
refused to open it unless the demoiselles would bring papers signed 
by prominent officials. 

Saint looked through the bars longingly. " I wonder which is the 
ball-room," she remarked, musingly. 

"The ball-room!" exclaimed Barbara, interested at once. 

"Why, yes. Have you never heard that story? When Miss 
Mitchell was in France the celebrated French astronomer, Leverrier, 
invited her to spend an evening at the observatory. Professor 
Mitchell went in a simple suit of Qiiaker gray. When she arrived 
she was ushered into a brilliantly-lighted ball-room. Leverrier had 
given a ball in her honor, and there were the noblesse of France in full 
evening costume — trains, lace, low necks and diamonds — assembled 
to receive her." 

Intense admiration shone in Barbara's eyes. " How cheap all 
their tinsel finery must have looked beside our star," she exclaimed 
enthusiastically. "There is a woman who has made something really 
grand of her life. Full dress, indeed! The presumption of expecting 
her to attend a court ball." 

"I thought it absurd enough, but that is the French way. In 



02 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

England, when they wish to do honor to a scientist, they give a 
dinner instead. I am sure I don't know which I should dread most, 
a dinner at Oxford or a ball at the French Observatory." 

" Dinners are poky things," remarked Barbara. " I'd choose the 
ball." 

" That is because we Americans resemble the French more than 
we do the English." 

They returned to Maud, who was still diligently painting. 

She closed her sketch-box as she saw them approaching. " I can 
come here some other day," she said, generously. " I had just as lief 
my study should dry before I go at it again; and if we do not leave 
immediately we will never get around to Barb's point of interest, the 
Hotel des Invalides." 

" I am sure I am interested in everything," replied Barbara, with 
truth, " and I never should have thought of poking round after those 
old Invalides if it had not been for father." 

The Hotel des Invalides, however, proved more interesting than 
they had anticipated. The tattered flags that chronicled Napoleon's 
victories seemed to droop sadly over his tomb, and the old veterans 
so cozily established in the comfortable hotel recalled to their minds 
those who had followed the great general in his campaigns, and who 
never would believe that he was dead. Their little gardens with 
child-play of fortifications and battle-field were interesting and touching 
as well. One veteran had arranged his in imitation of the Rock at 
St. Helena, with a little lead image of the man in the " redingole 
grise^'^ the heavy gray overcoat which was characteristic of the first 
Napoleon. There had been men in the institution, so their guide said, 
who had wounds for nearly every one of Napoleon's great campaigns, 
a star-shaped, powder-blackened scar in the cheek, received in Italy, — 
of which the owner vv^as as proud as of a medal of honor; an eye 
destroyed by scorching desert sands at the time of the battle of the 
Pyramids; a sabre cut on the arm at Austerlitz; four fingers frozen on 




DOME DES INVALIDES. 



PARIS. 35 

the march back from Moscow; a wound in the leg, the most trifling 
of all, but the one that rankled most, received at Waterloo. 

Barbara's letter, when it went to her father, was not a cold 
statement of facts and dates, but a vivid and enthusiastic sketch of the 
career of the great conqueror. 

She was beginning the study of history in a new way, not by dry 
dates and names, but from monuments of heroic or brilliant deeds 
and souvenirs of touching episodes. The great book lay open before 
her. She had read but one leaf, and henceforward she was an 
insatiable student. Other characters kept coming up as centres of 
interest, their lives overlapping and interlacing, making the most 
romantic and fascinating of continued stories. " I shall read and 
read," she said to herself, " and perhaps, by and by, I shall find ou*- 
what to do with my own little life." 



36 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



CHAPTER II. 

W FRENCH SOCIETY. 



WHERE a-re^>^^u going to paint to-day, Maud ? " Barbara asked 
one ^11 ins:, in their second week in Paris, as she saw Maud 



^tD' 



preparing her sketch-box for an expedition; "I hope not in that tire- 
some Louvre." 

" No, I am going to the Cluny palace." 

"Where is that? Has it anything to do with Cluny lace?" 

" It is in the Latin quarter, and is used nowadays as a museum of 
antiquities; it is filled with the most delightful old rubbish. Among 
other things, I believe there is some splendid lace. Come with me, 
and 3^ou will enjoy rummaging among the antique furniture, tapestries, 
carvings, vestments, porcelains, and all manner of bric-a-brac." 

"Oh! I don't know; I'm rather tired of museums. They stretch 
away off to infinity, and you are always congratulating yourself that 
you have reached the last galler}^, when another, with a slippery wax 
floor piled with loads of fascinating things which you haven't the 
moral courage to resist, is suddenly sprung upon you." 

" But the Hotel Cluny is not such a vast and dreary monument. 
The beauty of it is that it is little and cosy enough to make a nice 
dwelling-house." 

"AVhat are you going to paint? Are there rows and rows of 
pictures to copy ? If there are, I declare I'll not go. My brain 
just swims when I attempt to disentangle the pictures I've seen in 
Paris." 

" No, there are only a few delightfully absurd old pre-Raphaelit6 
things that will make you laugh heartily. It is just the quaintest, 



FRENCH SOCIETY. 



37 



dearest old house in the world, a bit of medieval times brought to life 
again. It would be very easy to imagine that the ^ Reine Blanche/ 
the widow of Louis XII., had just left her bed-room, and we had 
slipped in by some magic. The carved state bed with its canopy and 
faded velvet hangings are all there, just as in the olden time. lam 




HOTEL DE CLUNY. 

going to paint an interior, a carved fire-place, which one sees looking 
out from that bed-room." 

"Well, I'll go with you, Maud, for I must choose between that 
and the excursion which Saint makes out to the Donjon of Vincennes. 
The churches are dreary enough sometimes, and I know I could not 
stand a prison." 

" Is Saint going alone ? " 



38 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



"No, those wofully tedious friends of hers, the Shawmuts, invited 
her. They want her to go with them, too, to the Abbey of St. Denis. 
They seem to have come to France on purpose to find all the gloomy 
and repulsive places. The very look of the photograph of the Donjon 










THE DONJON OF VINCENNES. 



of VIncennes was enough to frighten me from going there. Mrs. 
Shawmut was telling, too, a tragic story of the assassination of the 
Due d' Enghlen, which occurred there. I am sure I should see the - 
young man's ghost In every shadowy corner." 



FRENCH SOCIETY. ^q 

"I am not sure but you would find the excursion an entertaining 
one. I remember Dumas made the place vividly real to me in his 
Trois Mousquetaires." 

" Indeed, I am not sorry I came here instead of going to the 
dungeon," Barbara exclaimed, as they mounted the curious staircase of 
the Hotel Cluny, and entered the armor-hung hall; "it is just the 
place for an adventure of some sort. There is an assassin behind that 
tapestry, I am morally certain, and if we wait until dusk, a ghost will 
glide across that gallery. There are blood-stains yonder on the 
polished oak floor, and Borgia poisons in those old Venetian glasses. 
— Dear, dear, it is just too lovely for anything." 

" It is the best place in Paris to paint a medieval interior," replied 
Maud, practically planting her easel and camp-stool, and opening her 
box of colors. "Don't feel obliged to sit here beside me all the time, 
but explore the building and see if you can discover a mystery." 

Barbara wandered away, inspecting the illuminated missals and old 
ivories displayed behind the glass doors of the cabinets, and falling 
into a trance of mingled admiration and amazement before some 
Palissy plaques filled with porcelain eels and craw-fish, the like 
of which she had never seen before. She returned after a time to 
Maud, and the two girls descended the spiral staircase, and lunched 
in the court, seated among specimens of antique sculpture, relics of 
old Roman da3's, following Caesar's conquest of Gaul. 

Maud ran up stairs to pack her artist furniture, the light would be 
different in the afternoon, and Barbara waited for her in the gar- 
den. Presently she heard her approaching and speaking to some one. 
Turning she saw Maud looking back indignantly at a young French- 
man ; evidently her remarks were not encouraging, for he waved 
his hand apologetically, and retreated. 

" What was he saying to you ? " Barbara asked with much 
interest. 

"The impudent thing wanted to carry my box for me." 

"And what did you say? " 



40 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



" I told him I was not in need of a porter," 

" Good, he must have felt complimented. I hope he thought you 

really took him for 



one. 

"It is the first 
time any one has 
ever spoken to me 
in Paris. I am so 
vexed because it 
helps demonstrate 
Sister's theory, that 
girls should not go 
out without a chap- 
erone." 

" I think you man- 
aged him very nice- 
ly. I suppose he 
thought all Ameri- 
can girls were like 
Daisy Miller, and 
had never heard the 
proverb, — There 
are two kinds of 
girls, girls who flirt, 
and girls who go to 
Vassar College." 

" Very likely the 
benighted individual 

never heard of Vassar." (A supposition which was afterwards proved 

to be the fact.) 

" But Maud, about the chaperone business. If I had been with 

you I don't see why I would not have answered just as well as your 

sister." 




NOT IN NEED OF A PORTER 



, , .. ^ i^^:^/^^;^r\ , ^ ^^,.^M ^^^f " ^^, 




fSi^'u^a 



k - . >-*fc,xo\,,.-. 



FRENCH SOCIETY. .^ 

43 

" You are not a married lady." 

"How is anybody to know that? I am taller than Mrs. Arnold, 
and have loads more dignity. The next time we go out together, I '11 
wear my diamond ear-rings. Only married ladies in France wear 
diamonds. Then I would like to see anybody dare speak to us." 

"You had better borrow Saint's spectacles. What we need is 
some old-looking person. As you say Sister is no better than one of 
us. She 's prettier and flightier than we are. I am sure I always 
feel that I am chaperoning her when we are together. Saint has 
never been molested, and she has been to nearly all the churches in 
Paris alone." 

" Which proves to my mind that well-conducted, earnest Ameri- 
can girls do not need a chaperone, especially when there are two or 
three of us together." 

" We will know better after this trip is over, but if I ever come 
to Europe again, and have to bring a dragon, I will bring an older 
and a more sensible one than Sister." 

The next day v^as one long to be remembered. It was spent at 
Versailles. The four wandered together through the miles of his- 
torical paintings, peeped almost awe-stricken into the rooms once 
occupied by the unfortunate Louis XVI. and his lovely Queen, Marie 
Antoinette, shivered a little at the glassy coldness of the Mirror 
Salon, and descended with a long drawn breath of relief to the gar- 
dens, among the most charming in all Europe. The box and yews 
were cut into fantastic forms; there were long avenues and ^r^r/erri^^ 
of brilliant flowers, terraces of imposing stairs, statues, and, above all, 
fountains. It was a day des grandes eaux. "The Queen of the 
Frogs " was showering the thirsty stone turtles, in another fountain 
mischievous little Cupids were blowing water at each other through 
carved billows, and the startled attitude of the statues of the horses 
in the Rocher of Apolk\ ^at seemed to have been led to one of the 
pools to drink, was explained by the splashing and leaping water 



44 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



about them. They lingered after dusk until the stars came out, as 
did nearl}' all the visitors that evening, for there was to be an illumi- 
nation. The grand fountain of all, " The Triumph of Neptune," 
spouted its many columns into the night air, while all around Bengal 
lights were burning, and their various colors, crimson, blue, yellow 
and emerald, were reflected in the jets of water with all the changing 
brilliancy of prisms. 

" Now I understand," said Barbara, " why Paris received its name. 
The word is a contraction, only three letters dropped out of Par(a- 
d)is(e)." 

They reached their hotel tired out but enthusiastic. " It is cer- 
tainly the most interesting day and brilliant evening we have spent 
so far," said Maud. " Those fountains were simply unpaintable, they 
were geysers of splintered rainbows." 

" There is one more excursion which we must make before we 
leave Paris," said Mrs. Arnold, carelessly, " and that is to Fontaine- 
bleau. It would never do to miss the palace, and you know, Maud, 
that the artist colon}^ of Barbizon is on the edge of the park." 

" Yes," replied Maud," I would like to go to Barbizon, since we 
have seen the other artistic colon}^ at Ecouen." 

" My dear," said Mrs. Arnold with a trace of triumph in her 
voice, "you shall go to both. We will set out for Fontainebleau 
to-morrow. Madame Le Prince has a villa on the confines of the 
forest. She has invited us out to spend the night with her, and the 
next day in exploring the palace. Monsieur Le Prince is quite a 
historian ; he will be an excellent guide in that great rambling cara- 
vansar}^" 

Maud's face was not encouraging, but she had already committed 
herself to a desire to visit the palace, and her sister followed up her 
advantage. 

"You can have no objection to going, for Armand is not at home, 
he is in business somewhere near Marseilles. You will see only two 




LABYRINTH OF VERSAILLES. 



FRENCH SOCIETY. 



47 



old people who have been very polite to me, and to refuse whose 
kind invitation would be rudeness indeed." 

The next day the four girls, for Mrs. Arnold was herself very 
young and childish in appearance, took the train for Fontainebleau. 

They congratulated themselves on securing an entire compart- 
ment, but just as they rolled out of the station, a young man sprang 
hastily in. Barbara grasped Maud's hand impulsively, it was the 
very forward person whom 
they had inet at the Hotel 
Cluny. He seemed in no 
way abashed by the ren- 
contre, but made a thou- 
sand polite apologies for 
intruding upon an apart- 
ment which he had not the 
time to notice was reserved 
for ladies. Mrs. Arnold 
bowed very prettily and 
smiled, but the girls re- 
treated with freezing hau- 
teur behind their thick 
travelling veils. Mrs. Ar- 
nold, to make up for this 
lack of cordiality, attempted to converse with the stranger in broken 
English. As she was not proficient in French, she always spoke to 
foreigners in as close an imitation as possible of their own efforts in 
English. It seemed to her that they must understand it better than 
the language itself, pure and simple. 

" Do not derange yourself, Monsieur," said Mrs. Arnold, sweetly. 
" // ne faut pas apologized 

"Do be still, Lily," whispered Maud, in an agony of despair, " that 
is the insufferable person who spoke to us at the Cluny." 




ON THE TRAIN. 



48 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



Mrs. Arnold's manner underwent a sudden change, she remem- 
bered the responsibility of her position, and at once assumed a 
majestic and freezing attitude. The young gentleman made no 
remark, and was evidently quite as uncomfortable as they were. 
Arrived at the station, they found an open carriage sent by Madame 
Le Prince, waiting for them. They had hardly taken their places, 
however, when, to their utter amazement, the young man mounted to 
a seat beside the driver. Mrs. Arnold addressed the coachman in 
broken English, and demanded that their fellow-voyager should be 
required to descend. The man stared at her in dumb astonishment, 
not comprehending her meaning. " Translate for me, Saint," Mrs. 
Arnold insisted, and Cecilia politely, and in perfectly good French, 
intimated that this was not a public carriage. The 3^oung man looked 
up with a merry expression. " It is true," he said. " A thousand 
pardons," and touching his hat gracefully, he clambered down. 

"Dear me," murmured Mrs. Arnold, " I never heard of such pre- 
sumption. Don't talk to me about girls travelling without the 
protection of a married lady, it is utterly out of the question." 

"Mrs. Arnold! " exclaimed Barbara, "that objectionable young 
man has taken a cab, and is actually following us." 

"He is indeed," said Maud, who had ventured one sidelong glance 
backward. "Oh! how shall we ever get rid of him?" 

" He will stop somewhere in the town," said Saint, composedly. 
" I am quite sure that he is not really following us, but that his way 
and ours happens to lie in the same direction." 

"I should say it did," replied Barbara, "we have passed the town, 
and he still keeps on the even tenor and soprano of his wa}^" 

" He will desist in the pursuit when we enter the park gates 
of the Le Prince estate," said Mrs. Arnold, confidently. But to their 
chagrin, the cab passed the gate-lodge just behind them, and 
followed them up the avenue. 

"How very mortifying," said Mrs. Arnold. "What will Ma- 
dame Le Prince think of us ? He must be intoxicated." 



FRENCH SOCIETY. aq 

They mounted the steps and rang the bell. While waiting for a 
response, their follower alighted, joined them, and threw open the 
great door with a courteous " Entrez^ Mesdaines^'' 

" Sir," exclaimed Mrs. Arnold in her most withering manner, 
" this is not a public house.*" 

" True," he replied, with the same merry twinkle in his eye, '^^ but 
it is my father's house, to which you are very welcome." 

It was Mrs. Arnold's turn to be nonplussed, this was the young 
M. Armand Le Prince of whom his mother had so often spoken. 
The girls, too, were much confused, but the young man's merriment 
was contagious, and a hearty laugh helped them over the embarrass- 
ment of the situation. Papa Le Prince, a fat, white-haired, old 
gentleman, dressed entirely in white linen, and Madame, also fat and 
white-haired, but clad conventionally in black silk, gave them a most 
cordial welcome, and the evening passed very pleasantly. 

Early the next morning they set out together to view the Palace of 
Fontainebleau. Their way led them through the famous park so cele- 
brated in the history of France. They reached at length the quaint 
jumble of incongrous buildings which makes up the palace. It 
seemed to Saint as if it were a living thing, some wonderful century- 
plant originally set out by Robert the Pious, and nursed and tended 
by Louis VII. and Philippe Auguste, under whose reign, and that of 
Louis IX., it had put out various stalks and branches; while in that 
of Francis I., it had blossomed into a splendid hall, and unlike other 
plants, had kept its first flower while other buds and blossoms 
gathered about it under Henry IV., Louis Philippe, and Napoleon III. 
Papa Le Prince knew every legend of love and crime connected with 
the place, and without him they never could have found their way 
through the maze of galleries, grand and spiral staircases, secret pasages, 
suites of salons, mysterious chambers concealed in the walls, haunted 
corridors, sightly towers, and frescoed halls. Papa Le Prince led the 
way, escorting St. Cecilia, Madame followed with Mrs. Arnold and 



50 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



Maud on either hand, and Barbara and young Monsieur Armand 
brought up the rear. Papa Le Prince admired Cecilia greatly. 
"What a holy woman!" he remarked to Mrs. Arnold, "she has 
evidently been brought up in a convent. She cares for nothing but 
churches and sacred music. She is doubtless destined for a nun- 




CHATEAU DE FONTAINEBLEAU (viEW TAKEN FROM THE GARDEN). 



nery!" In their out of door rambles, Papa Le Prince carried an 
immense white umbrella lined with green, with which he gallantly 
shaded Cecilia, insisting on carrying her waterproof upon his other 
arm. They got along very well together, for Cecilia admired his 
genuine kindliness of heart, and Papa Le Prince was determined 
to contribute toward giving her as much enjoyment as possible before 




PAPA LE PRINCE AND CECILIA 



FRENCH SOCIETY. r-j 

she entered upon a religious life. Barbara and her escort also soon 
became quite confidential. They chatted together in French, which 
Barbara used rather lamely. 

" Did you know who Maud was when you spoke to her at the 
Cluny?" Barbara asked. 

" Not at all. I saw that she was an American, and very prett}^ 
My mother had written me a great deal of Miss Maud Van Vechten, 
but I imagined that she was very homely, and that I should detest 
her." 

" Why did you think that? " 

"Because my mother wrote that she was rich, accomplished, and 
good. With all that it w^ould be too much to demand that a young 
lady should be attractive, as well. Does she like Paris, or would she 
prefer to reside in America?" 

" In America, of course," replied Barbara. 

" That is good, I have myself often thought of visiting New York. 
I am in a business which they tell me would be very lucrative over 
there. We manufacture wines." 

" I do not think that grapes are cultivated sufficiently in America, 
to make that a very profitable business there." 

" But we do not make genuine wines. We simply imitate them. 
Our firm can furnish an exact duplicate of any required wine, with 
the flavor, color, and bouquet, so exactl}^ rendered, that the most 
expert connoisseur would be deceived, and that without the use of a 
single grape." 

" What do you use then ? " 

"Brandy, dye-wood, vitriol, and powerful essences." 

" But the result must be poisonous." 

"Most certainly, but there is a great deal of money in it." 

" I think that is simply horrible." 

" You object to the business. On what grounds?" 

" It would be illegal in our countr}'. It must result in ruin every 
way, to the bodies and souls of 3'our customers." 



54 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



Monsieur Armand looked at her in wide-eyed surprise. He had 
never regarded his business in that light before. " Do you think," he 
asked meditatively, "that Mademoiselle Maud would entertain the 
same sentiments? Is that the reason that her sister has not come to 
any definite understanding with my mother? She wrote that there 
was some objection, and that was why I was interested to come on 




CHATEAU DE FONTAINEBLEAU (THE OVAL COURT). 

and see the young lady, but 1 thought that perhaps it was because she 
did not care to live in France." 

They were standing in the Oval Court, surrounding which, the 
most interesting parts of the palace looked down upon them. The 
others had gone inside, and for a few moments they were alone. 

" If 3^ou wish to know how Maud would feel in the matter," Bar- 
bara said slowly, " I am sure if you were to offer her this entire 



FRENCH SOCIETY. 



55 



palace, she would refuse it if it were purchased with money obtained 
in such a way. But then Maud does not want to marry any one, 
under any circumstances." 

" Mademoiselle Maud does not wish to marry," the young man 
replied, in some surprise, " and why is that?" 

" She is too young, and she has not yet finished her course at 
Vassar." 

"What then is this Vassar? Is it a convent, a religious house? " 

"Oh, dear no, that is, it is quite religious enough, but not in the 
way you mean. It is a college, where we take all the higher studies, 
mathematical astronomy, Greek, and Latin." 

"And is Mademoiselle Maud passionately devoted to Latin?" 

" She detests it, but it's in the curriculum, you know, and we have 
to take it. She is devoted to art, and after she graduates, she intends 
to become an artist. She will never marry, nobody could induce 
her." 

" But suppose I also became a great artist, could I not in that way 
win her admiration ? " 

Barbara shook her head. "She would not care for you unless 
you turned out a genius, and you do not look in the least like one." 



56 • THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



CHAPTER III. 

JOAN OF arc's town. 

A WAY from fascinating Paris, with its parks and palaces, its 
-^ ^ gaiety and pathos, our travellers whirled into the heart of the 
sunny south of France. They paused at historic picturesque 
Chartres only long enough to make an excursion to the Chateau 
de Maintenon, the home of the lovable and witty little woman 
whose misfortune it was to attract the attention of Louis XIV., and 
to be raised to the onerous dignity of court life. Her letters tell 
what a slavery it was. "Dear me," exclaimed Saint, as they stood 
beside the moat and viewed the beautiful old castle with peaked and 
turreted roofs, its girouettes and balconies, " not even this lovely 
palace and the honor of being a king's wife could compensate me for 
the society life she led, the being preyed upon by every member of 
the court, having to settle their quarrels and intrigues, to hear and 
sympathize with all their grievances and ambitions, and in living com- 
pletely for others, have no life left for herself." 

" She called herself a mushroom," said Maud, " I can imagine 
that a mushroom might have been pretty well torn ^nd crushed 
between such thistles and rocks of grandees." 

From Chartres the quartette passed at once to Orleans, the city 
so closely identified with the history of its renowned Maid. They 
found her statue in front of the city hall, and an interesting old 
museum devoted almost exclusively to souvenirs of her career. But 
what interested the girls most was the succession of captivating old 
houses, still standing, from whose mullioned windows and quaintly 
carved balconies high-bred dames had witnessed the enthusiastic 



JOAN OF ARC'S TOWN, 



59 



demonstrations of the people who thronged about the deHverer of 
their city. Everything here reminded the spectator of the victorious 
part of the career of Joan of Arc, of her knightly exploits and beatific 
visions and of the unanimous gratitude and worship of the rescued 




VIEW OF CHARTRES. 



people of France. When she trod this soil she was adored almost 
as a supernatural person, there was nothing to suggest the mock 
examination in prison, torture and the death of the stake. They found 
that they could secure lodgings for a few days in one of these his- 



5o THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

toric houses, a fascinating old mansion with a noble spiral staircase 
of white stone, and a great carved chimney-piece, fit for a baronial 
hall. A pillared colonnade partly surrounded the central court, and 
grotesque gargoyles craned their necks from under the eaves. The 
place had fallen from its ancient state, and was occupied now by a 
cooper, whose kegs and cheese-boxes v^ere piled in the grand salon 
until the}' touched the armorial ornaments of the ceiling. It seemed 
like going back to the middle ages to find themselves actually estab- 
lished in a building dignified by the name of Agnes Sorel's house, 
and Saint was sure that one night she heard the clank of armor as 
though the knightly Dunois were keeping guard in the court below. 
This clanking proved afterward to be the creaking of the windlass 
with which the family drew water from the cistern. 

"What a lovel}^ old place it is!" said Maud. "It is like moving 
about in one of Scotfs romances. I would rather a thousand times live 
in a house like this than to have my choice of all the princely 
modern buildings in America." 

" It would not take much of a fortune to buy it," suggested Mrs. 
Arnold, " and Madame Le Prince told me she was not at all merce- 
nary in regard to her son. She only requires as dowry for his wife 
as much money as the}' will give him. Now this old place might be 
bought for a song, and Papa Le Prince with all his antiquarian taste 
would be just the person to restore and furnish it." 

" Lily," exclaimed Maud with some indignation, " I do not desire 
to hear that young man mentioned again. I trust we have done with 
him forever." 

"I must say, Maud," expostulated Mrs. Arnold, in an aggrieved 
manner, " from the way in which you take me to task, one would 
imagine that I was travelling under your care, instead of having been 
constituted your adviser in points of social etiquette." 

Maud bit her lips, " Well, Lily, I trust this is our last disagreement. 
We are off now for fresh fields and pastures new, and you don't know 




JOAN IN PRISON. 



JOAN OF ARC'S TOWN, 5, 

how thankful I am that you have no acquaintances in the south of 
France, and that, consequently, there will be no social etiquette to be 
observed." 

" I don't know about that," mused Mrs. Arnold, " one sometimes 
runs across old friends where they are least expected, and then it is 
one of the privileges of travel, that you are constantly making new and 
valuable acquaintances." 

"One can make acquaintances at home," Barbara suggested, "and 
it seems a pity to waste our time while abroad, in cultivating people, 
when there are so many more interesting things to be done. I pro- 
pose that we make Orleans our headquarters, and make excursions all 
around the country, to the historic chateaux of France." 

"Orleans is really quite a central point, " assented Saint; "we can 
radiate around it until we have exhausted the chateaux in its immedi- 
ate vicinity, and then move our tents a stage southward." 

Barbara took out her guide-book. " Let us go first to Bourges; it 
is not far, and there is an exceedingly interesting old castle, the 
^Chateau du Moutier,' in the neighborhood." 

To Bourges accordingly an excursion was planned for the next 
da}^ but when the morning arrived, Mrs. Arnold awoke with a severe 
headache. Their tickets had been purchased, and it seemed a pity to 
forfeit them. 

"You will be all right to-morrow, Lily," said Maud; "why not 
let us go on and secure rooms for you? We can meet you at the 
station when you arrive." 

Mrs. Arnold demurred. She was afraid to trust them alone, and 
imagined all sorts of dangers which girls might run without the 
protection of a married lady. She yielded the point rather un- 
willingly, stipulating only that Fifine, the daughter of the cooper, 
should accompany them in a bonne's cap and apron, as a hostage 
to respectability. It was in vain that Maud protested that they were 
not babies, and did not need a nurse tagging about with them. Mrs. 



64 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



•<C^^^ 



Arnold was Inexorable, and Fifine, with round, smiling face, and great 
w^ondering e3^es, took her first ride in a rail-car as guardian of Maud's 
sketch-box, Saint's waterproof, and a lunch -basket prudently provi- 
ded by Barbara. 

They arrived safely at Bourges, secured their room, and visited 

the interesting Hotel de Ville, once the home 
of doughty Jacques Coeur, then engaged a 
barouche and driver to take them to the 
Chateau du Moutier, on the morrow, and 
retired early, with high anticipations of a 
day of pleasure. The next day the girls 
hurried to the station, but to their aston- 
ishment the train whizzed by, leaving no 
Mrs. Arnold. 

" Lily is alwa37S behind hand," said 
Maud. " I might have known that she 
would get left if I were not there to hurry 
her up." 

But the next train from the north dis- 
appointed them again. 

" Perhaps her illness was more serious 
than we imagined," suggested Saint. 

" I will go back at once," exclaimed 
Maud, impulsively. 

" Better telegraph first," advised Bar- 
bara. They waited anxiously two or three 
hours. The telegram received no reply. 
"There is a train north at four this afternoon, and I shall return 
by it to Orleans," said Maud, who was almost distracted. 

"We will go with you," exclaimed the other girls. They re- 
turned to the hotel, lunched, paid their bills, collected their 
belongings, and found themselves at the station just as the train from 




FIFINE AS BONNE. 



• JOAN OF ARC'S TOWN. gc 

the south rolled in. Maud rushed to one of the doors, but was 
deterred from entering by a lady who was alighting, — it was Mrs. 
Arnold. 

"Lily, Lily!" she exclaimed. "How ever did you manage to 
get on this train? Were you carried by, this morning?" 

" Yes, Maud, dear," replied Mrs. Arnold faintly. " I have been 
quite ill. I had a queer sort of fit in the railway carriage, and com- 
pletely lost consciousness for a time." 

" My poor Lily," cried Maud penitently, " I ought not to have 
left you." 

" You know I did not approve of it," replied Mrs. Arnold, with a 
superior air; "I think that this proves that we should always travel 
together. I do not know what would have become of me if I had not 
happened to have made the acquaintance of an English lady who 
occupied the same compartment with myself. I will tell you all 
about it when we reach the hotel, but really I am too faint now to 
speak." 

After dinner the whole story came out. "We were alone in the 
compartment," explained Mrs. Arnold, "and you don't know how 
thankful I was to have so pleasant a travelling companion. When 
she said that she was English, I asked her if she knew the Baroness 
Burdett-Coutts, and she said that she was her first cousin by marriage; 
then of course I felt perfectly free to converse v/ith a person so highly 
connected. She said that she had sent her cousin on in advance to 
secure rooms for her, and she vv^as very glad of my company, for she 
had valuable jewels about her, and one meets so many unprincipled 
characters while travelling. You would have been very much inter- 
ested in her conversation. She knew the legend connected with 
every old ruin on the way, for she had been over the route a number 
of times. I wonder if you noticed a barren stretch of country on the 
wa}^, a sort of heath without a vestige of a tree or shrub. She said it 
had originally been one of the most fertile spots in France, but a 



66 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



company set up some chemical works and the fumes poisoned the 
vegetation for miles around. ^ If you open the window,' she said, 
^you can perceive the chemicals quite plainly.' And so I did, a 
faint, sickening odor, which made me feel quite ill. "^Oh!' I said, 
^ it is suffocating;' and I put down the sash. ^ Yes,' she replied; 'you 
look quite faint, — take my vinaigrette.' I took a good sniff at it, but 
it was too late. I felt myself going, going, and was only conscious 
that my friend drew me gentl}' to her, and fanned me with her hand- 
kerchief. When I came to my- 
self the train was stopping at 
Nevers, and I was quite alone." 

" It is very extraordinary," 
mused Barbara, " I should have 
thought your friend ^vould not 
have deserted 3^ou until you re- 
covered." 

"The worst of it v^^as," con- 
tinued Mrs. Arnold, " that when 
I came to buy my return ticket to 
Bourges, I found that I had been 
robbed, my purse was gone, my 
watch and chain, and the gold 
THE baroness's COUSIN. -j^]^}^ opg^.^ g]^ss ^^at I bought 

in Paris as a wedding present for Blanche Bellmont, — I thought 
that there would be no harm in my using it on this trip, as I left 
mine at Fontainebleau. Well, they were all gone, and if I hadn't 
happened to have put some change in the pocket of my reticule I 
am sure I don't know how I should ever have got back to you. I 
can't conceive how the thief got all the things without m}- knowl- 
edge. He must have been more adroit than our New York pick- 
pockets." 

" Lily, you are a baby! " exclaimed Maud. "Can you not see that 
it was your travelling companion who robbed you.^ " 





illl!l!!t!li!Itlili!iil!lillillil!ii;.ital!l!llilllllllllli;i:ililliil!,iU!iiii^ 



JOAN OF ARC'S TOWN. 5q 

"Maud Van Vechten, can you imagine that a relative of the 
Baroness Burdett-Coutts would do such a thing?" 

" Of course not, but what makes you so sure that she is a relative 
of the Baroness? You have only her word for it." 

"Do you think she took advantage of my happening to faint?" 

"There was n't a single happen about it," asserted Barbara, con- 
fidently, "all that story about the chemical works was a clever fabri- 
cation, — the creature chloroformed you! " 

" I am afraid you are right, and I wonder I did not suspect her at 
the time." Mrs. Arnold was extremely mortified by the occurrence, 
and for a time her self-confidence was considerably shaken. 

The next morning the party visited the Chateau du Moutier, a 
massive-walled deep-dungeoned castle, more like a feudal fortress 
than any edifice which they had yet seen. At its foot flowed the 
peaceful river Cher, and the prince of the power of the air shrieked 
about its battlements, rattled its rusty weather-cocks until their creak- 
ing resembled the cries and wailing of prisoners undergoing torture, 
and buffeted the tattered gonfalons that flaunted defiance from the 
topmost pinnacles. After this excursion they returned to Orleans for 
a few days, which Maud improved in sketching, and Saint and Bar- 
bara by prowling in the Museum. Barbara was often seen during 
these days with note-book and pencil. "Are you preparing a history 
of Joan of Arc?" Maud asked jestingly, "if so, I hope you w^U engage 
me to illustrate it." 

" You need not laugh, " Barbara replied, I am going to have all my 
compositions for next year written up before we return." 

"You must read us your essay on Joan of Arc when it is fin- 
ished." 

"With pleasure," Barbara replied, but the essay was never fin- 
ished, for the next day the party continued its journey to Blois. 



70 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



CHAPTER IV. 



AN HISTORIC CHATEAU. 



A T Blois, of course the first object of interest was the royal cha- 
-^^^ teau, — a building fated to be the theatre of many tragedies. 
It seemed to the girls that the very spirit of crime lurked still in the 




CHATEAU DE BLOIS, EAST SIDE. 



guilt-haunted corridors. The gargoyles looked at one another with 
malicious, knowing glances, as who should say, — "We know and we 



AN HISTORIC CHATEAU. h^ 

could tell such secrets of treason, treachery, and murder. We have 
overheard conspiracies, and acted as spies upon scenes of infamy and 
atrocity. We understood the intrigues of Catherine de Medicis, 
stony-hearted and unpitying as ourselves. The great Due de Guise 
looked up at us and shuddered as he saw something sinister in our 
expressions when he strode into the chateau to his death. We have 
not only known all this, but we have instigated it, for we are fossil 
demons, spirits of evil, who brooded over these battlements to tempt 
their occupants to guilt, and who have been turned to stone, in expi- 
ation of our crimes." 

The girls found a great part of the chateau preserved in its 
original state, and were shown the blood-stains on the floor of the 
room where Guise fell at the foot of the royal bed, pierced by the 
assassin's daggers. The weak king, Henri III., came, and looked at his 
fallen enemy and quailed before him. " How tall he is!" he cried, 
" he looks even taller than when he was alive." 

" There was a manhood in his look, 
Which murder could not kill." 

After the royal chateau, they visited a smaller one, originally the 
residence of the Due de Guise, but which had been purchased in these 
latter days, and conscientiously restored by a noted historical painter, 
Leon Escosura. Monsieur Escosura was absent at his Parisian 
studio, where Maud had met him; but he had courteously given her 
a card to his housekeeper, who now showed the party the little 
jewel-box of a chateau, gossipping garrulously about the rooms and 
objects which she showed them. The girls were somewhat familiar 
with the paintings of Escosura, having seen them at Goupil's gallery 
in New York, and it was extremely interesting to them to visit his 
atelier, especially as at Blois he kept his wonderful wardrobe, a 
museum of antique stuffs probably unsurpassed by any private, and by 



74 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



few public collections. Here were faded Arras and Gobelin 
tapestries, tufted Aubusson carpets, silken and satin hangings drop- 
ping to pieces with their own weight. Here were ecclesiastical 
vestments of marvellous embroidery, and altar-cloths of old rose- 
point. Here were costumes too, of the very period of Catherine de 
Medicis, and which were ver}^ probabl}-' worn by ladies of her court; 
royal velvets whose sumptuous masses of light and shade were rimed 
with a delicate bloom like a dust of white ashes over a living coal, an 
effect which only age can give, and which artists love to render, and 
satin with a flickering sheen evanescent as mother-of-pearl, and 
exquisite in flow and fold, as in tint. Maud did not wonder that 
Escosura had seemed to her, across the water, as rather a painter 
of costume than a figure painter, that his gold-wrought brocades 
seemed fairly to rustle in his pictures, their flowered patterns pass- 
ing from light to shadow with admirable skill, while his faces were 
often lacking in character and expression. 

"It is not the highest art, after all," she said, as the gate of the 
chateau clanged behind them. " How much more glorious it is to 
be a painter of feeling, like Millet, and paint the souls of men and 
women looking out of patient, pleasant faces, instead of all this 
trumpery of theatrical costume." 

"That is true," replied Saint; "but every artist is not a genius like 
Millet, and these historical pictures and old costumes do bring up the 
past very vividly, and with a bon-bon box in my hand that once held 
poisoned confections, and was itself held by the wicked fingers of the 
king mother and murderess, I can believe that she really lived, and 
that history is not mere romance." 

" How much more we enjoy these things," suggested Barbara, 
" from seeing them after we have completed the course in history. I 
am so glad we happened to be in advance of our class, in that depart- 
ment. I can well imagine that to one who knew nothing of the 




MURDER OF THE DUG DE GUISE. 



AN HISTORIC CHATEAU. hh 

events at the time when the chateau of Blois was in its prime, a 
visit to this old town would be a bore." 

" It seems to me," assented Saint, " that a visit to Europe before 
one had studied histor}^ would be a great mistake." 

" I never studied history to any great extent," placidly remarked 
Mrs. Arnold; "and yet I enjoy coming to Europe." 

"I am sure you have not smiled once since we came to 
Blois," Maud declared. 

"By your own make out, history would hardly have made the 
place gayer for me," retorted Mrs. Arnold; " besides, I expected to 
receive a letter from Madame Le Prince, which has not arrived. I 
shall doubtless find it waiting for me at Madrid." 

Maud scowled. " I thought we had seen the last of Madame Le 
Prince," she murmured. 

"Maud, dear," exclaimed Barbara; "I think studios are fascina- 
ting places, especially when one has the means to purchase a 
chateau and fit it up like Monsieur Escosura. I bespeak a chance to 
accompany you on any further visits of the kind. Do you remember 
Belle Branscomb's experience when she went to see Kaulbach's studio 
in Germany? She knocked at the door, and a little old man opened 
it, and listened to her request to see Herr Kaulbach, while he nibbled 
away at a bit of cheese. 

"'^The artist Kaulbach is at his luncheon,' he said, ^but I will show 
you his paintings.' He then took them to the studio, and was 
politely attentive, and as he seemed to take an interest in his master's 
work. Belle was quite free with him, and made very frank remarks 
and criticisms upon the pictures, which seemed to amuse the old man 
greatly, especially when anything she said was unfavorable.- It 
gradually dawned upon Belle that this man, whom she had mistaken 
for the janitor, was no other than Kaulbach himself." 

"Was he really?" 



78 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



" Of course he was, and he had told the truth when he said that 
Kaulbach was at lunch, for he kept eating his bread and cheese while 
showing them the studio." 

"Tours is the next stopping-place," said Maud; "but I believe 
hardly a vestige remains of the chateau of Plessis lez Tours, which 
Walter Scott immortalized in his romance of Quentin Durward." 

" It seems a pity, with all our western wealth, we do not build 
chateaux in America," said Saint. • • 

"We do better," replied Barbara. "We build colleges. And indeed, 
Vassar resembles a French chateau more than I would have thouo-ht. 
Just wait till the vines have a chance to grow, and the dear old pile to 
mellow into venerable age; and Vassar, in the midst of her noble 
park, will be able to hold up her head, for picturesque interest, with 
any ducal chateau in sunny France." 

" But Vassar has no noble sculptures or glorious stained glass," 
sighed Maud. 

"She will have," Barbara replied, impetuously. "Girls don't 
usually have a great many jewels. Vassar is young yet, she will 
gain her diamonds as years go by. She has done enough for us, and 
it is for us girls to decorate her in return. I am sure the stained 
glass of La Farge and Tiffany rivals the medieval windows we see 
over here. When I come into my property I mean to make the 
chapel a present of one memorial window, and that will make the 
others look so mean, that other alumnae may be will be minded to 
complete the set." 

" I intend to study painting on glass," said Maud. " Perhaps some 
day I can create something worthy to be placed there." 

" I have neither the money to purchase nor the skill to make 
a window," said Saint. " What can I do for Vassar?" 

"Be a window!" exclaimed Barbara, quoting from her favorite 
poet, George Herbert, — 



AN HISTORIC CHATEAU. 



79 



■Man is a brittle and a crazy glass, 
Yet in Thy temple thou dost him afford, 
This glorious and transcendent place, 
To be a window, through Thy grace. 

Making Thy life to shine within. 

Which else shows wat'rish, bleak, and thin." 




A WINDOW. 



8o THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



CHAPTER V. 

OCEAN AND MOUNTAINS. 

T^HE strength of the hills is His also. The sea is His, and He 
-■- made it," chanted the choir of the tiny English chapel at St. 
Jean de Luz, a little town just on the frontier of Spain. At the right 
the Atlantic rolled gloriously in to the throat of the Bay of Biscay, 
and toward the left the grand chain of the Pyrenees stepped majesti- 
cally down to the sea. 

After leaving Tours the party had paused only for a night at Bor- 
deaux, and then had come a stretch of desolate, sandy country, known as 
the Landes, where peasants upon stilts tended their flocks, and were 
sometimes to be seen, propped by a long pole, knitting composedly, 
while their charges browsed upon the scanty herbage. They found 
St. Jean de Luz to be a favorite watering-place of the English. A 
few families, who came only to enjoy the sea-bathing for a few weeks, 
had been unable to resist the fascination of the place, and, remaining, 
formed a small English colony, with chapel, and rector, and circulat- 
ing library of English books. Fashionable Biarritz, near by, was a 
favorite sea-side resort of the French. There were immense hotels 
and the Empress's villa, and there was all the rabble of the Parisian 
monde, with fireworks and brass bands ad libitum. But here at St. 
John of the Light there was a crumbling old town, encroached upon 
by the relentless sea, so that at low-tide one could see the foundations 
of houses draped with algae, and serving as aquaria for nations of 
fishes. Here were sturdy Basque fishermen and bold, black-eyed 
girls in alpa gatas^ or curious white canvas sandals laced around 
their shapely ankles with vivid scarlet braid. 



OCEAN AND MOUNTAINS. 



8i 



Votive offerings of tiny ships suspended before the altars of the 
churches in this region told of what were considered miraculous 
escapes on the stormiest of waters 

" In the Bay of Biscay, O." 

Across the bay shimmered the domes and roofs of the old Spanish 




A LEAF FROM MAUD S SKETCH-BOOK. 



town of Fontarabia; further down the coast was San Sebastian, 
where bull-fights were sometimes celebrated. The mountain ofTrois 
Couronnes showed its triple peak in the background, now purple 
with cloud shadows, now rosy with reflected sunset light. Little 
donkeys, gaily caparisoned with a multitude of scarlet tassels and jing- 



.g2 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

ling bells, were ready to take them in any direction by land, and the 
fishing boats were always tempting them seaward. One night the 
Bay showed them what it could do in the shape of a storm. The 
surges pounded the beach like trip-hammers, the wind howled de- 
moniacally, and shook the hotel, which faced the sea, until the light 
iron bedsteads in which the}' lay seemed fairl}^ to be lifted from the 
shore. In the morning they saw that a large English steamer, home- 
ward bound from the Mediterranean, had put in behind the break- 
water, as the sea was too heav}^ outside for her to proceed on her 
course. 

" What atrocious weather!" said Mrs. iVrnold, as they sat at break- 
fast. " I never could endure lightning, and the thunder reminded me 
of a Fourth of Jul}^ celebration at home." 

" I thought it simply glorious," exclaimed Saint. " It made me 
think of the ^ Hail mingled with fire ' in the Israel in Egypt. It was 
the grandest music I have heard since M^e came abroad." 

The beach was strewn with masses of sea-weed torn up by the 
storm, lying tangled like cordage of stranded ships. The storm was, 
however, an exceptional occurrence. The weather during the greater 
part of their stay was fine, and the long stretch of yellow sand was 
gay with bathers frolicking on the beach or floundering like playful 
porpoises in the breakers. 

Maud carried her cam.p-stool to a sheltered nook, and filled her 
sketch-book with amusing groups, making a pretty picture herself, 
with her earnest face and unconscious attitude. They lingered as 
long as they could in the restful old place, and then turned their faces 
toward the mountains. 

" Nothing in France," says an English writer, " is more beautiful 
than the Basque Pyrenees." The magnificent scenery of the higher 
ranges is hardly surpassed by Switzerland itself. St. Sauveur, the 
Pic du Midi, Luchon, Cauterets and Les Eaux Chauds are each roman- 
tically or wildl}^ picturesque. Besides the natural attractions there are 



OCEAN AND MOUNTAINS. 



83 



fascinating- historical remains; old Templar churches at St. Savin and 
Luz, and an interesting citadel at St. Jean Pied de Port, guarding the 
entrance into Spain. Through a portion of the P3'renees, therefore, 
the girls resolved to go. They set out from Bayonne on the top of a 
shambling old diligence for St. John of the Citadel, and bowled 
through most interesting mountain scener}', now slowly climbing the 
steep ramps, and now dashing recklessly downward at headlono- 
speed. They passed the Pas 



de Roland, which the peasants 
say he hacked through the 
mountain with his wonderful 
sword Durandal, a sword said 
to have been preserved with 
the hero's topboots for cen- 
turies at the Convent of Ron- 
ccsvalles. After a long day's 
ride they found themselves in 
queer old St. Jean de Port, 
under the shadow of Vauban's 
mighty fortress. The Convent 
of Roncesvalles was only a 
day's journey across the moun- 
tains, and the girls decided to 

make it on mule-back, hiring a sturdy mountaineer as guide, who 
trudged contentedly at their side, encouraging the animals with as- 
tounding whacks. They sat on strange pack-saddles, and it being a 
matter of no consequence as to which side they faced, they placed 
themselves in opposite positions, in order to catch the scenery on 
both sides of the road. 

The convent is celebrated as built beside the long and narrow 
defile where Roland and his men were surprised and massacred. 

Charlemagne was returning, as the history goes, from a victorious 




MAKING A PICTURE HERSELF. 



84 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



campaign against the Moors in Spain. Roland, his kinsman, prefect 
of the marches of Brittan}-, commanded the rear of his army. En- 
tangled in the ravine, the mountaineers fell upon them, hurling down 




ON MULEBACK. 



great stones and trunks of trees, and massacred to a man. Roland 
died waking the echoes with his wild horn. Its appeal for help, so 
says tradition, was heard by Charlemagne ninety jniles away, who 
hurried back with his army, but all too late. When the Pyrenean 
mountaineers hear the wind uttering strange and demoniacal wailings 




DEATH OF ROLAND. 



OCEAN AND MOUNTAINS. 



87 



through the gorges of the mountains, they say still, " It is the re- 
echoing of Roland's death cry." 

The song of Roland is the oldest Christian ballad extant. It tells 
the story as Tasso might have done. The passage which tells of 
Charlemagne's arrival upon the field is especially good, — 

" How high the mountains and the beetling crags ! 
How deep the gorges, and how swift the streams 
Loud blow the trumpets of the Emperor ; 
Before, behind, the army loud they blow. 
And answer Roland's horn. 

The Emperor rides on in bitter wrath, 

The French are furious with agony. 

Not one who is not sobbing as he rides ; 

Not one who is not praying God to save 

Roland in mercy till they reach the field. 

And deal brave blows beside him. All in vain ; 

It is too late. Alas ! they come too late ! " 

The convent library was filled with ancient books and many 
relics which reminded the beholder of the age of Charlemagne. 
"That must have been an interesting school," said Saint, "which he 
established in his palace, presiding over it himself, and giving out 
to his sages questions and problems in logic, astronomy, geometry, 
and even theology." 

The men whom they met upon the road had the look of brigands. 
They carried heavily loaded sticks called makillahs, and wore 
sanguinary colored turbans, or boinas. " They look," said Barbara, 
" as if they might belong to the clan that murdered Roland." 

"They were all Carlists at heart," their guide said, "and have, 
most of them fought for the pretender, in the late wars. They 
live now by smuggling the fiery wines of Spain into France." 

Even the girls were wild as the goats they tended. They wore, as 
did the men, dark cloth jackets gayly trimmed with braid, the only 
difference being that their own were generally sleeveless, displaying 



88 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



their dimpled elbows and the wide, white chemise sleeves. " I won- 
der whether they are called Basques from this peculiarity in their 
costume," queried Mrs. Arnold. " More likely that we have adopted 




PEPITA. 



the jacket and the name Basque from them," replied Maud. They 
were coquettish in their unconscious poses, and there was one gypsy- 
like creature, who occupied a room into which they could look from 




CHARLEMAGNE S SCHOOL OF THE PALACE. 



OCEAN AND MOUNTAINS. ^^ 

their hotel balcony, who seemed to have a craving after civilization, 
for she had a wee bit of a cracked glass, before which she was 
continually combing her stiff, black hair. But an evil-looking gun 
with a bent ba3'onet, hung above the glass. It belonged to Pepita's 
father, and had seen service; moreover, it was ready to be handled 
again, and some one told them of a fierce song which Basque 
Carlists were wont to sing as they dashed to their terrible hand-to- 
hand encounters, — 

" They are not worth our powder, 
So thrift should be shown, 
The bayonet, the bayonet ! 
The bayonet alone." 

Once more upon the rail, the girls left the Pyrenees behind them, 
with all their fascination and terror, their savage gorges, and pictur- 
esque peasants, crumbling architecture, and wild legends. Over 
dizzy trestle-work, and through cavernous tunnels, out into blinding 
sunshine, past riotous cascades, sleepy villages, dusty olive-groves, and 
long stretches of tawny sun-burnt lands, they whirled into a land 
of romance and mystery, into the heart of Spain. 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



CHAPTER VI. 

MADRID. 

'' I ^HE girls were leaning upon the wrought iron balcony, and look- 
-^ ing out upon the fountain, whose crystal columns flashed and 
shattered in the basin which formed the centre of the Puerta del Sol, 
when Mrs. Arnold joined them with a face radiant with satisfac- 
tion. 

" I knew you would like Madrid," said Maud, before her sister 
had time to speak, " it bears such a close resemblance to your be- 
loved Paris." 

" It is not that alone," replied Mrs. Arnold, " though I do confess 
that the sights of a city are more to my taste than those tiresome 
chateaux and the barbaric places we found in the Pyrenees, but I 
have just received a letter from Madame Le Prince." 

" Did she return your opera glass ? " Maud asked, dryly. 

"No, but her son will return it for her in person." 

Maud turned with a start, " We are not likely to meet that youth 
again, I hope." 

"Indeed we are; he is at this moment somewhere in Spain, prob- 
ably Valencia." 

" So glad we are not going to Valencia." 

" But he will find us out, never fear. He has changed his busi- 
ness; he has become an artist, and Madame Le Prince hints that it is 
all out of love for you." 

Maud flushed indignantly. " One does not become an artist all 
of a sudden. He will not succeed in that or in anything else." 

"Wait till you see. Madame Le Prince says his ^creations' have 



MADRID. g- 

been much praised, and that the best critics have lauded his exquisite 
taste, especially in dainty harmonies of tint." 

"It would be remarkable, would it not?" exclaimed Barbara, "if 
that young man should turn out an artist. Even if he only makes a 
poor one, it is certainly a more innocent occupation than an agent for 
counterfeit wines." 

" He will only be a counterfeiter in any case, I fear," replied 
Maud, scornfully. 

"Really, Maud, you are too bad," exclaimed Barbara, hotly. "I 
never saw any one arrange a bouquet so charmingly as he did. He 
had the true artist's e3'e for color and a poet's feeling for sentiment. 
I take that young man under my special protection, and you are not 
to speak of him in a desultory manner." 

The girls laughed merrily. " At your old tricks, Barb," Saint 
remarked mildly, for Barbara had been noted in her preparatory days 
at College, for a reckless use of long words when enthusiastic or 
excited. 

" Which do 3'ou mean, derogatory or insulting? " 

"Both, of course. I had time to get only one out and I wanted to 
make it strong." 

Mrs. Arnold saw that nothing was to be gained b}' pursuing the 
subject, and gracefull}^ eluded further discussion of this point, by sug- 
gesting another — 

"What do you think, girls, of attending a bull-fight?" 

"A bull-fi^ht? horrible!" 

" Lily, are you crazy ? " 

" Vassar girls at a bull-fight, the ideaP'' 

"Why not? The spectacle is the national amusement of Spain, 
you lose one of your opportunities." 

" I don't care," exclaimed Maud, " the}' are low and vulgar, and 
brutal, I would as soon think of attending a prize-fight in London, or 
a cock or dog-fight," — 



94 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



" Or a hanging in Kansas," added Barbara, " or even a New 
York walking-match. Why we are all of us members of the Society 
for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I think I see myself trotting 

coolly oft' to a bull-fight — on Sunday 
morning too! " 

Mrs. Arnold laughed at the tem- 
pest which she had raised. " Well, 
this is not Sunday," she remarked, 
" what do you suggest for to-day ? " 
"The Royal Art Gallery, of 
course," replied Maud, " it is the 
sight of sights in Madrid. No- 
where else can you see Velasquez to 
advantage, for nearly all his works 
are owned here." 

Maud carried her sketch-box, and 
Barbara accompanied her to wander 
through the seemingly endless gal- 
leries w^ith her guide-book, her eyes 
dilating- with awe and admiration 
before the superb Titians, chief 
among which she admired his por- 
trait of himself, painted in his old 
age, and the Charles V. on horse- 
back. There were dashing eques- 
trian figures by Velasquez, — his 
Tapestry Weavers, the Forge of 
Vulcan, the Surrender of Breda, Philip IV.'s Family and Dwarfs, 
and other master-pieces which chained her attention as well, while 
Maud laughingly charged her with being lost " in wonder, love and 
praise," as she stood before Murillo's Immaculate Conception. 

Here were treasures, too, b}^ the old Flemish masters which were 




STUDYING VELASQUEZ. 



MADRID. or 

secured during the reign of Philip IV., when Spain ruled the Nether- 
lands. Barbara, who was familiar with Motley's great history, was 
not surprised to find here gems by Rubens, Vandyke, and the lesser 
Dutch painters. The horrible pictures of Ribera were chronicles of 
the Inquisition, the dark days of torture and the auto da fe. 

Saint came across a strange old man, who seemed peculiarly out 
of place in the Spanish capital. He was an Englishman, George 
White by name, though he presented a dirty enamelled card bearing 
the Spanish version of his name, Jorge Blanco. He had come into 
Spain twenty years previous as tutor for a young hidalgo, and had 
picked up a precarious existence, principally as guide and courier 
for English tourists ever since. He had always intended to return to 
England, but had never been able to lay by sufficient money for his 
travelling expenses. Saint pitied the poor old man, he seemed to her 
like an old wreck stranded upon a strange shore, and she engaged his 
services as guide while they remained in Madrid. The girls found 
the city more interesting the longer they remained in it. 

Its open-air theatres and gardens, where strange ices with stranger 
names were served in tall glasses, while bands played, fireworks glit- 
tered, and fountains plashed; its ever varying street panoramas; their 
shopping expeditions after lace, almagro mantillas, and Spanish 
blond scarfs; the luxury of the ro3'al palace, and the lesson in history 
aflbrded by the state carriages of difterent epochs displayed at the 
ro3'al palace, all blended afterward in a dazzling mental kaleidoscope 
of shifting scenes and figures. 

They made an excursion to the Escorial, a huge, whity-gray, 
prison-like building, which has looked down forbiddingly upon Ma- 
drid from a windy mountain spur for three centuries. A great con- 
vent, palace, museum, barracks, college, tomb, the wearied eyes and 
feet of the girls soon pronounced it a stupendous bore. The exterior 
was extremely bald, not a spray of ivy or moss to give to the bleak 
iron stone the dignity of age; it had the bare, forbidding look of a 



96 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



penitentiar}'. Within, it consisted of a labyrinth of cloisters, halls, 
court-yards, cells and corridors connecting the pantheon, library, 
palace, refectory, sacristy, etc. 

The Escorial was built by the bigot king, Philip II., who lived 
here for fourteen years, half a monk, and died miserably in a little 
cell behind the high altar, where he could view through a little win- 
dow^ the elevation of the Host. The library was a most tempting 
hall. On lecterns were displayed Hebrew Bibles, copies of the Koran 
in Arabic, and some Latin books. Maud was desirous of copying 
some Moorish illuminations. She knew that the Inquisitor Cisneres 
had burned 80,000 Arabic volumes taken from the Caliph Abduraha- 
man's immense library at Cordova, but that some, thanks to the 
beauty of their decoration, had been saved from the flames and safely 
stowed awa}' in the Escorial. The books on the library shelves, ap- 
parently never having been intended to be read, had all been carefully 
turned with their edges outward. Maud requested Jorge Blanco to 
beseech the priest in charge to place the coveted volumes at her dis- 
posal. The two conversed some time with much vigor, and at length 
the guide explained to Saint, whom he persisted in regarding as the 
chaperone of the party, that the priest was much shocked by her 
proposal, and that such a privilege was not to be thought of without 
a special dispensation from his sanctity the high-cardinal-patriarch 
arch something or other. If the senoras could remain in the vicinity 
for several weeks they might take ineasures to institute inquiries 
as to the advisability of requesting the Superior of the ijistitution 
to forward her written request to this high functionary^ who had 
now departed on a pilgrimage to Rome or yerusalem. 

" It seems very strange to me," said Saint, a few days afterward, 
"that the capital city of Spain has no cathedral." 

" Toledo is so near and handy by," suggested Barbara. 

"And the Escorial answers the purpose very well," added Maud. 

"I have just had such an interesting visit at the Convent of 




THE LIBRARY OF THE ESCORIAL. 



MADRID. 



99 



Atocha," continued Saint, " I must take you girls out there before we 
leave Madrid. They have an image of the Virgin there, one of 
whose perquisites it is to possess the wedding dresses of all the 
Queens of Spain. Barbara would just revel in the collection." 




THE COURIER EXPLAIN 



And here we interrupt our narrative to describe one of the curious 
features of religious worship in Spain — a feature which they met 
continually ^s they became more familiar with the cathedrals and 
churches of the countr}', and which exists here in a phase different 
from that of any other Catholic country. 



lOO 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



CHAPTER VIL 



THE DEVOTIONAL IMAGES OF SPAIN. 

ENTERING Spain from the north, and visiting in order its fascina- 
ting old cities, from Barcelona to Malaga, we find that our itin- 
erary includes a series of grandiose cathedrals rich in interest to the 

student of history, of art, or of human 
nature. 

In each of these cathedrals is to be 
found an image of the Virgin, sometimes 
of great age and often decorated with 
jewels. These images have different prov- 
inces assigned to them, and are considered 
as separate and distinct personages. 

Nuestra Senora da Guadalupe is be- 
sought by all captives and prisoners ; the 
royal family enjoy the special protection of 
the Virgin of Atocha ; cripples seek the 
wonder-working shrine oi Nuestra Senora 
del Pilar ; the insane are under the care 
of the sacred image of Valencia; soldiers 
go through military evolutions before our 
Lady of Battles in the Cathedral of Seville; 
while the Virgins of Monserrat, of Toledo, 
and other shrines, divide the odd corners 
of territory not pre-empted by the sovereign ladies already mentioned. 
The girls first made the acquaintance of Nuestra Senora del 




NUESTRA SENORA DE 
GUADALUPE. 



THE DEVOTIONAL IMAGES OF SPAIN. 



lOI 



Pilar in a trip which they made to the city of Zaragoza. The legend 
goes that the Mother of our Lord, while still living, was borne by 
angels to Zaragoza, and, descending upon an alabaster column, ap- 
peared to the consolation of St. James, who was then laboring in 
Spain. How the sacred image, which is small, and carved from 
black wood, appeared, and was set apart to call to mind this miracu- 
lous apparition, is not stated. The Cathedral 
was built for the express purpose of shelter- 
ing the sacred pillar, and a domed and pro- 
fusely ornamented chapel serves as throne- 
room for the Virgin. The morning upon 
which the girls sought an audience was not 
set apart as a special reception day, and yet 
the throng of kneeling devotees was so great 
that they found it impossible to approach very 
near the august presence. As they wandered 
disconsolately about the outskirts of the corn- 
pan}' a beadle or other church official sug- 
gested that they might inspect the Virgin's 
wardrobe in the Sagrario. This was rare 
good fortune, for these trinkets are only 
shown on stated occasions, and all unaware 
they had fallen upon an exposition day. A 
priest reverently unlocked a spacious cabinet and showed them first 
the silver ware which had been presented for the Madonna's house- 
keeping. Here were gold and silver table services, both full size 
and Liliputian; silver inkstands for her use when inclined to literary 
pursuits; here were candlesticks without number; cups and salvers; 
ewers and porringers. A chest of shallow drawers ran along one side 
of the sacristy, resembling a case for engravings or entomological speci- 
mens. Each drawer contained a single dress, or rather fan-shaped 




NUESTRA SENORA DEL 
PILAR. 



I02 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

mantle, which when fastened about the Image, gave it the appearance 
of a large extinguisher. Each of these capes was a marvel of decora- 
tive art. There were blue velvet manteaux heavily embossed with 
embroidery in silver thread; a white satin one, stiff with arabesques in 
gold; strange specimens in which painting was mingled with needle- 
work, and others a bead-work of pearls and jewels. Some of these 
robes had been wrought by royal ladies, and others were the patient 
flowering of a life spent in the cloister. There was one very peculiar, 
in which figures were worked in low relief, the heads consisting of 
miniatures painted upon ivory. The visitors were all enthusiastic, 
expressing their admiration by such exclamations ^s "^^ Es divi?io ! '''' 
Is it not Divine ? 

As the girls passed out of the building, jostled by repulsive beg- 
gars, their attention was attracted by the clusters of votive offerings, 
waxen models of legs attesting to miracles of healing performed 
through the intercession of the Madonna. The oil of her lamps has 
the reputation of restoring lost limbs, and many are the prodigies re- 
counted. Saint remarked that the cathedral reminded her of the 
. Pool of Bethesda in that a " multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt 
- and withered wait " in the porches for healing. The physicians of 
Spain have not a high reputation, and lamp oil, while it may not per- 
form the wonders desired, has at least the merit of being compara- 
tively harmless. This Virgin not only restores amputated legs, but 
is resorted to, to prevent broken bones. The Duchess of Abrantes 
hung a tiny image of our Lady del Pilar as a talisman round the neck 
of her favorite bull-fighter, who bore a charmed life ever after. This 
particular image is, perhaps, the most widely celebrated in literature. 
Innumerable are the legends by Catholic writers in the Spanish 
tongue, and her fame has crept as well into English poetry. Scott, 
in his description of the siege of Zaragoza, addresses the city as 
follows : 



THE DEVOTIONAL IMAGES OF SPAIN. 



103 



" Arise and claim 
Reverence from every heart where freedom reigns, 
Yox what thou worshippest ! thy sainted dame, 
■ She of the column, honored be her name, 
By all, whate'er their creed, who honor love ! " 

Southey also alludes to her in the concluding stanza of Queen 
Mary's Christening: 

" Shine brighter now, ye stars that crown 
Our Lady del Pilar, 
And rejoice in thy grave, Cid Campeador 
Ruy Diaz de Bivar." 

Between Zaragoza and Barcelona, but nearer the latter city, rise 
the saw-like peaks of Monserrat. Here is an ancient mountain 
Hos-pedaria^ as interesting in its way 
as the Convent of St. Bernard. And rf^v'S-- 

here there still resides an image of 
the Madonna w^hich belongs to the old 
noblesse of this peculiar aristocracy. 
It is supposed to have been made by 
St. Luke and brought to Spain by 
St. Peter, A. D. 50. When the Moors 
occupied the country it was hidden in 
a cave, and was discovered a century 
later by a bishop, who was guided to 
the place of concealment by a pecu- 
liarl}' sweet perfume, — a miracle in- 
deed in this land of unchristian odors, Ignatius Loyola watched 
all night before this Virgin, dedicating himself to her as her knight, 
and leaving his sword on her altar before founding the order of the 
Jesuits. The Convent of Monserrat, like the Alpine hospices, makes 
a specialty of the entertainment of travellers. Ranges of wildly pic- 
turesque mountains lift their serrated outline against the sky, and 
warrant the name borne by the chain. The little engraving which is 












' — "T17r;||p TnTp )||N||||| .-^imiiiiiiiLj uii,iijmiJiimJuiiiiuiij|]illrliiMii.;,i,iiiMii ^ -— ' 

NUESTRA SENORA DE MONSERRAT. 



I04 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



to be found in most religious print shops throughout Northern Spain, 
of this ill-favored virgin, represents as her coat of arms a range of 
ragged mountains crowned by a saw^, the emblem of Monserrat. 

Returning to Madrid, from their religious pilgrimage eastward, the 
girls paid their respects to the virgin of the Atocha convent, a sacred 
image w^hich receives more courtly ceremonies than any other in 
Spain, though humbly housed in an unpretending convent. In the 
sacristy at the back of the altar they were shown the virgin's ward- 
robe, one which interested them more than that of any other image in 
Spain, for these dresses have each a history of their own, and were 
not made originally for the idol-doll to whom they now belong. The 
Virgin of Atocha is the patroness of the royal family, ^vho are all 
married before her shrine. She has ladies of honor and dressing- 
maids, appointed from the ladies of the court, w^ho robe her for state 
receptions and for triumphant processions. One of her perquisites is 
the wedding-dresses of all the queens of Spain. Our party looked 
over thirty of these bridal and other dresses, from Isabella the Catho- 
lic down to the wedding-robe of the present queen. Here w^ere white 
satin robes with magnificent trains loaded with ermine, and blazoned 
in exquisite embroidery with the lion of Aragon and castles of Castile; 
furlongs of priceless pointe d'Espagne, citron-tinted with age, gar- 
nished with gossamer-blossom flounces, which had swept the floor of 
palaces, and had been carried gallantly by courtly pages. The}^ saw 
the rich robe with the frightful dagger-cut in the bosom, in which 
Isabella II. was assassinated on her way to pay a visit to this shrine; 
but the only one " which angled for their eyes and caught the water,"" 
was a dainty design of Worth's, of turquoise blue satin covered with 
costly lace, which, in its turn, was beaded with pearls, — one of the 
reception dresses of the unfortunate child-queen, Mercedes. 

When monarchs are so ill that their lives are despaired of, as a last 
resort the Virgin of Atocha is called. Basilliac writes that she paid a 
visit to Philip III. as he lay dying, but was powerless to arrest the 



THE DEVOTIONAL IMAGES OF SPAIN. 



105 



approach of the darker visitant. The Virgin of Atocha, although 
appropriated by royalty, ranks 





only third in the sisterhood. 
El Pilar of Zaragoza stands 
second, but the great queen 
of all is, or rather was, for 
her prestige has waned of 
late, Nuestra Sefiora de Gua- 
dalupe. She inhabits a noble 
Geronomite convent, once the 
wealthiest in Spain, and situ- 
ated in the Sierras, between 
Toledo and Badajoz. 

The monastery, with its 
castellated towers, its grand 
library, its Gothic and Moor- 
ish cloisters, and its hospe- 
daria for strano-ers, built with 




NUESTRA SENORA DE LA MERCED. 







r 1 ^ — -^ 

NUESTRA SENORA DE TOLEDO. 



the confiscated wealth of burnt here- 
tics, is well worth a visit. The 
Virgin lost many of her personal ef- 
fects during the war with the French, 
Napoleon's soldiers carrying away nine 
cartloads of solid silver from her shrine. 
The visitor, glancing at the canker-cor- 
roded metal work, and at the costly 
vestments dropping with age into silken 
tatters, and bearing in mind the depreda- 
tions of the invader, is forcibly reminded 
that the Romanist has laid up his treasure 
" where moth and rust doth corrupt, and 



io6 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



where thieves breakthrough and steal." The Virgin, though no longer 
able to compete with her sisters in the style and magnificence suitable 

to so exalted a personage, bears her re- 
duced circumstances with serene resisfna- 
tion. Her particular province is the lib- 
eration of captives, especially Christians 
held as slaves by the infidels. Her 
chapel is hung with broken manacles and 
chains, left here as votive offerings by 
captives rescued from the Moors. She 
p: shares this peculiar office with Nuestra 
Senora de la Merced, the patroness of 
Barcelona. A military-religious order was 
formed during the crusades, of knights 
v^ho devoted themselves to these Virgins 
and to the ransom of prisoners among 
the Moors and Turks. Cervantes cele- 




NUESTRA SENORA d'aTOCHA. 



brated both the order and the " Sanc- 
tissima image^i Libei'tad de los cau- 
tivosP One of the ballads which Mr. 
Lockhart has rescued from the mists of 
antiquity must have had a very vivid 
meaning for many a fair Spanish lady, 
and we can imagine that the same lips 
which repeated Ave Marias before Nues- 
tra Senora de la Merced may have often 
sung the plaintive ballad: 

" Ye mariners of Spain, 

Bend stoutly on your oars, 
And bring my love again, 

For he lies amons; the Moors." 




NUESTRA SENORA DE LOS DESEM- 
PARADOS. 



From Madrid the girls turned at last southward, and biddmg the 



THE DEVOTIONAL IMAGES OF SPAIN. 



107 




NUESTRA SENORA DE CARMEN. 



royal city a final good bye, they vis- 
ited Toledo, one of the most interest- 
ing cities in all Spain. Here they 
found another interesting Virgin. The 
cathedral which shelters her is one of 
the noblest in the peninsula. Weeks 
might be spent in exploring its beau- 
ties, and a separate chapter might well 
be devoted to its description. The 
doll's crown and bracelet were stolen 
in 1868, but her trousseau and jewel 
casket as it now exists would easily 
furnish those 01 a half dozen Fifth 
Avenue brides. One of her mantles 
is embroidered with 257 ounces of 
pearls, 460 ounces of gold and gold thread, and eight ounces of 
emeralds. 

It is fabled that the Virgin descended in person to visit this image 
when it was first set up, and was so well pleased with it that she 
kissed it, and bestowed on it the power of working m-iracles. St. 
Ildefonso, who presided at a church upon this site at the time, was the 
recipient from the virgin's hands of a chasuble woven oUieave?iIy cloth. 

The virgin of Valencia, Nuestra Senora de los Desemparados, is 
the protectress of the unprotected, especially of orphans and the insane. 

Nuestra Senora del Carmen, whose residence I have been unable to 
ascertain, is besought for souls in purgatory, and is represented in 
religious pictures as extending the scapulary to penitents in flames. 

Wandering through the columned forest of the grand mosque of 
Cordova one wonders whether the religion which has usurped 
that of Allah in Spain has less of error in its fabric. 



jq8 three vassar girls abroad. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

TOLEDO. 

" T NEVER heard guitar-playing before." This was Saint's exclama- 
-L tion, as she listened behind the curtains of her window to the 
chance serenade of a quartette of strolling players. The glorious 
moonlight transfigured the rude ramps and streets of the citadel city, 
the tall houses on one side were shrouded in mysterious gloom; on 
the other they were bathed in a flood of silver light which washed 
away all the unsightly stains so painfull}^' obvious in the day, and 
turned the ruinous old town into a city of black marble and silver. 
All night they had lain awake listening to successive parties of ama-^ 
teurs. All Toledo seemed to be abroad serenading his ladye, and 
sleep was out of the question. 

" I think you must have forgotten, Saint," suggested Barbara, 
" that we heard ' The Student of Salamanca ' rendered by the Glee 
Club at West Point." 

"No, I have not forgotten it," replied Saint, "how I wish those 
poor boys could hear this. Wouldn't they all cast themselves into the 
Hudson and drown themselves." Such an extravagant remark on 
the part of Saint was proof positive that she was strongly moved, for 
Saint was usually irresponsive, cold, and exact. She seldom made a 
statement which expressed either more or less than she intended, and 
her pet name at College had been Purity, Propriety and Precision. 

By daylight Toledo showed them a city set upon a hill, wath nar- 
row precipitous streets, like defiles cut between cliffs, or canons cut 
by mountain streams. These ravines were nearly all too narrow for 
the passage of carts or carriages; and during their entire stay in the 




A STREET IN TOLEDO. 



TOLEDO. 



Ill 



cit}', the girls saw only one wheeled vehicle, the diligencia, by which 
they arrived, and which drove directly into the interior of the hotel 
before stopping for them to alight. The most interesting building in 
Toledo, was, of course, the cathedral which has already been alluded 
to in the preceding chapter. 

Under the domination of the Moors, Toledo was noted for its col- 
lege of Magic and Alchemy. It is doubtful whether this was any- 
thing more than a school of Chemistry and Natural Science, but the 
reputation which it once enjoyed as supreme in the Black Art, lingers 
around it still. It is an oriental-appearing city. Some of these mas- 
sive walls and old houses with interior courts antedate, it is very 
possible, the taking of the city by the Christians. 

The Alcazar, an imposing building which has been used succes- 
sively as palace, citadel, barrack and silk manufactory, is now utilized 
as a Government School. The view from its steps of the Tagus 
lying asleep in its bed, and the tawny plain stretching away on all 
sides, was extensive but not inspiring. The cathedral drew them to 
by it the strong magnetism of its glorious architecture, and again 
and again they entered its sumptuous interior. Its gilded iron work 
seemed to them the very gold lace of architecture. 

Barbara was startled during Mass by seeing the carved figures 
surrounding the pulpit, which were moved by internal machinery, rise 
and fall upon their knees at the elevation of the Host. The cloister 
of this cathedral is built around the old Jews' market. The Jews 
helped the Christians gain Toledo from the Moors, but they must 
have regretted doing so afterward, for the monks circulated the false- 
hood that the Jews stole little children and crucified them, and so in- 
furiated the populace that they burned the houses of the unfortunate 
Israelites. Frescoes in the cloister, called "The Lost Child," repre- 
sent the crucifixion of a mythical bo}', and serve as an apology for 
robbing the Jews of their market. 

In a remote part of the city the girls came upon a quaint church, 



112 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



^^^ ^L^^^^r -'g^^ ^^"?g V^:^r^^ ■ ■ 




INTERIOR COURT AT TOLEDO, 



that of St. Juan de 
los Reyes. It was 
built by Ferdinand 
and Isabella, to 
commemorate the 
conquest of Gra- 
nada, and the ex- 
terior walls are 
hung with a fringe 
of chains and man- 
acles, said to have 
been taken from 
the limbs of Chris- 
tian captives res- 
cued from the land 
of the Moor. Isa- 
bella subsequently 
gave the church 
and convent at- 
tached, to her fa- 
vorite, Cardinal 
Ximenes. The 
cloister, in the 
most florid style 
of Gothic architec- 
ture, is one of the 
most beautiful in 
Spa-in. A garden 
which resembles a 
hot-house gone 
wild, is walled in 
by galleries of 




INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL, TOLEDO. 



'■ umii 




CARDINAL XIMENES. 



CORDOVA AND THE CALIPHATE. j^y 

beautiful pointed arches and mutilated sculptures, headless saints 
under intricate canopies, surrounded with exuberant carved folia- 
tions, rivalled only by the blossoming oleanders, pinks, roses, and 
heliotrope, which clamber close to the mossy sculpture, and lay 
their delicate cheeks lovingly against the carved emblems. It was 
a place to convert one to monasticism. " Surely it would be very easy 
to give up the pomps and vanities of the world," said Barbara, "if one 
could live always in such a spot as this." 

They visited the celebrated y^z^r/<:rt' d^armas. Time was when a 
" Toledo blade " was as noted as one of Damascus, but the swords 
now manufactured have not the temper nor the beauty of the antique 
specimens displayed in the museum. Some of these had mottoes 
enamelled in gold upon the blade. " Do not draw me without reason, 
nor sheath me without honor," was a favorite, as was also the chivalric 
" In defence of my lady." The girls bought some daggers for the 
hair, of steel, beautifully encrusted with arabesque designs in gold and 
silver. 

They left Toledo by the grand old Gate of the Sun, and looked 
back upon the castellated walls with regret. It was not a gay city, 
certainly, nor a particularly neat one, with its stable-3'ards invariably 
occupying the interior court, which was often the reception-room and 
dining-room as well, of the house. But it was a city with a history, 
and legends of enchanted palaces dating back to Roderic's time 
of Greek fire, fabricated for Saracen artillerymen, are still connected 
with its mysterious underground laboratories and windowless towers. 

It remained in their memories as a type of forgotten ages, to which 
the time of Don Quixote, of whom they were now reminded, as they 
whirled through the plains of La Mancha, was modern indeed. 



ij3 three vassar girls abroad. 



CHAPTER IX. 

CORDOVA AND THE CALIPHATE. 

THE party made their entree into Cordova one evening in August. 
The gas-lights sparkled as they drove along the Paseo del Gran 
Capitan, so named from the famous general Gonsalvo of Cordova, 
one of Ferdinand's first knights in the siege of Granada. It w^as 
the principal promenade of the city, and resembled somewhat, the 
Prado of Madrid. During the sultry days it is deserted, and its rov^s 
of orange-trees and Japanese medlars turn their dr}^ leaves, white 
with dust, to the scorching heavens. At night the scene changes. 
Bands play, innumerable gas-jets twinkle amongst the shrubber}^, the 
air is delicious, and the blue dome of heaven hangs its lustrous star- 
lamps over all. The few noble families who keep up a ghostly, 
antiquated state in this old town, drive up in their landaus and 
coaches, while the more plebeian revellers swarm the promenade, or 
seated at little tables, sip horchatas de chufa ox dulce de azakar, a 
sweetmeat essentially Cordovese in character, made of orange- 
flowers. 

In the morning Maud and Barbara started at once for the Grand 
Mosque, but Saint decided to spend the morning at home, for she had 
caught sight of an upright piano in a little reception-room that opened 
off the central patio or court of the hotel, where palms grew, a foun- 
tain plashed, and an aviary of birds made her wild to join in their 
music. Mrs. Arnold confessed herself a little fagged by her journey, 
and settled herself on a divan under an awning in the court, her dress, 
a whirlpool of mull ruffles, and a black-lace mantilla thrown about 
her head and shoulders in the Spanish fashion. Her fingers toyed 
with some light lace-work, but her calculating little head was full of 




ANNIE LAURIE. 



CORDOVA AND THE CALIPHATE. j2j 

all manner of ambitious and romantic schemes. She had been in- 
formed by the landlord that an English party from India was stoppino- 
at the hotel. She had noted their names on the hotel register, 
"Lord Gubbins and suite," and she had caught a glimpse of the 
gentleman as she entered the breakfast-room that morning. She had 
not thought best to conhde her plans, but she had firmly made up her 
mind to become acquainted with Lord Gubbins. That step once 
accomplished, and they should see what they should see. While these 
thoughts were flitting through her brain, a very distinguished looking 
young Englishman entered the patio, accompanied by a sour, disa- 
greeable looking old man. Mrs. Arnold at once recognized them 
as Lord Gubbins and his tutor. The latter wandered restlessly about 
for a few moments, and then went out. The 3'Oung man took up 
a newspaper which he glanced at listlessly but did not read. He rose 
at length, and Mrs. Arnold, feeling that a golden opportunity for 
making an acquaintance was slipping from her, looked up and asked 
sweetl}', "If there are any English newspapers there, may I trouble 
you to hand me one?" 

" I am sorry, madam," he replied, " these are all Spanish and 
French journals." 

There was a pause, but the gentleman did not go, and Mrs. 
Arnold was racking her brains for some means of carrying on the 
conversation, when Saint, in the next room, all unconscious of the 
favor which she was conferrino-, turnins' over the leaves of her Ens- 
lish songs and ballads, chanced to choose Annie Laurie. 

The gentleman made an abrupt motion, and Mrs. Arnold, looking 
up, saw that there were tears in his eyes. " Pardon me, madam," he 
said, "the last time I heard that song was in England, five years 
ago." 

Mrs. Arnold was charmed. " It does not seem to me," she said, 
" that speaking as we do, the same mother tongue, we require an 
introduction. I am speaking, I believe, to Lord Gubbins ? " 



J 22 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

The young man made a gesture of dissent. "My name is Feather- 
stonhaugh. I am only Lord Gubbins' secretary." 

This was indeed a disappointment, but Mr. Featherstonhaugh might 
prove a step toward the acquaintanceship which she desired, and Mrs. 
Arnold determined to cultivate him for the present. She invited him 
into the reception-room, introduced him to Saint, and insisted on her 
singing for him her entire repertoire of English songs. During the 
intervals of the singing, Mrs. Arnold gleaned that Mr. Featherston- 
haugh was on his return from a residence in India. He was almost 
too impatient to reach merry England once more, to pause for a 
moment upon the way. But he was not the master of his own 
actions. Lord Gubbins preferred to leave the Mediterranean at 
Cartagena and to cross Spain, embarking again at Lisbon, for 
England; and as a member of Lord Gubbins' suite he was obliged to 
take the more interesting, but longer route. 

For several days both parties lingered at Cordova, and the girls, 
though shy at first, came to feel well acquainted with Mr. Feather- 
stonhaugh. He was a simple-mannered, brotherly sort of young man, 
and moreover, he was so manifestly homesick and miserable, and was 
so bullied and driven about by his employer, that the girls pitied 
him. 

" That Lord Gubbins is a regular ^ Old Man of the Sea,' said Bar- 
bara, indignantly, " he orders his secretary about as though he were 
his lackey. In Mr. Featherstonhaugh's place I should certainly poison 
him." 

Whenever they found him off duty the girls did their best to 
entertain him. His preference, they could see, was for Saint, but 
when Maud expressed this in confidence to Barbara, the latter 
exclaimed, — " Don't show that you think so for all the world. Saint 
would freeze into an iceberg at once." 

" But Saint must know that he likes her." 

" She thinks that she reminds him of a sweetheart down in Kent, 



CORDOVA AND THE CALIPHATE. 



123 



but it's my opinion that he hasn't any sweetheart, or if he had one 
when he left Enghind, she has probably married some one else long 
ere this. Dear me, just to think, here are you and Saint who are 
wrapped up in Art and Music, and have no heart left for anything 
else, and two splendid young men fall in love with you at once, 
— and here is little me, with no pre-occupation and never a shadow 
of an admirer. If this sort of thing holds out I shall go back to 
Colorado." 

Barbara spoke lightly, in evident jest, but Maud threw her 
arms around her, — "You are welcome to my admirer, Barb, dear. I 
make over all title-deeds to that piece of property, in your favor." 

"Thank you," replied Barbara, shortly, "but you undervalue 
Armand Le Prince when you imagine that he would give you up so 
lightly. I am positive that he is very much in earnest." 

" Barb, you're a romantic little goose. I should never imagine that 
you were a Vassar girl." 

"Vassar graduates do marry, sometimes; the alumnse not infre- 
quently bring their husbands back to exhibit them to their alma 
mater-in-law." 

" Yes, and isn't it enough to console all the old maids, to see the 
line of husbands they invest in?" 

Barbara shook her head. " That's because you despise all men. 
Now I have known two or three who were actually nice," and, — 
flushing a little, — " you may call me a goose if you want to, but I 
positively do believe I shall be married some day. I haven't the least 
idea to whom, and I am in no hurry about it, but I am going to make 
the very most of my education and of my opportunities in every way 
for several years to come, in order to be worthy of some good man's 
love." 

Maud did not reply. She did not share in Barbara's feeling, but 
she felt that it was not a frivolous one, or a thing to be made sport of. 
She watched Saint with a new interest, and wondered what her views 
would be, though she did not quite dare to ask them. 



j2j_ THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

Mr. Featherstonhaugh visited with them the great mosque, and 
explained the different points of Saracenic architecture, and its 
resemblance to that of India. He had studied architecture as a 
profession, and it M^as still his intention to become an architect; he 
had only gone to India with Lord Gubbins because he thought it 
an excellent opportunity to study the wonderful buildings of the 
Orient. 

" While threading these dirty streets," said Saint, " we can 
scarcely believe that we are in the metropolis of the old Moors, the 
chief city of the Spanish caliphate." 

" But once inside the mosque," replied Mr. Featherstonhaugh, 
" and does not the entire outer world become illusory and unreal ? I 
could well believe that I hear the muezzin call, ^ come to prayer, come 
to prayer! Prayer is better than sleep,' and the place seems peopled 
with shadowy forms, standing with supplicating hands, or prostrating 
themselves upon their prayer-rugs, their faces toward Mecca. In 
spite of centuries of Christian restoration and mutilation, the building 
has preserved its original character, and it is a mosque still." 

" No cathedral has impressed me," replied Saint, " as this temple 
to Allah. None seems so appropriate a dwelling-place for Him who 
fills all space." 

"That," replied the young architect, "is on account of its immense 
width and depth. The mind is not carried aloft as in Gothic cathe- 
drals, by lancet windows and pointed arches. The idea of sublimity 
is communicated in the more difficult way, by extending dimensions 
laterally, and by mysterious depth. This infinitude of columns 
support the roof, which broods over the whole like the sense of God's 
beneficence, not afar but near." 

" This grove of many-colored shafts is the most beautiful feature 
of all, to me," said Barbara. " It makes me think of the words, — 
"^The woods were God's first temples.'" 

"The guide-book says that, originally there were twelve hundred 
of these columns, and over a thousand still remain." 



CORDOVA AND THE CALIPHATE. 



125 



l^^llfft! 



" I did not know that stone could take so many colors," Maud 
remarked. " See, here are marbles from black to white, malachite 
green, blood-stone, black veined with chrome, ultramarine, purple 
porphyry, jasper, carnelian- 
streaked, precious lapis lazuli, 
and snakily mottled serpen- 
tine." . 

"Their history also adds an 
interest," continued Mr. Feath- 
erstonhaugh. " They were col- 
lected from widely distant lo- 
calities; one hundred and fifteen 
are said to have come from 
Nimes and Narbonne, celebrat- 
ing Moorish victories in France; 
sixty from the remains of Ro- 
man temples in Spain; the em- 
peror Leo, of Constantinople, 
contributed one hundred and 
forty ; while the remainder were 
gathered from Carthage and 



other African cities, from Phoe- 
nicia, Greece, Egypt, Asia Mi- 
nor, and nearly every country 
bordering: on the Mediterra- 

j^gjjj^ " FATHER ST. lAGO MATAMORAS. 

"It seems almost a pity, does it not," mused Barbara, " that 
Ferdinand and Isabella drove the Moors out of Spain? Even the 
religion of the country seems to have deteriorated. I am sure that 
Mohammedan ablutions might be introduced with good effect into 
the present ritual. And just look at that old priest, his face all pursed 
up with disgust at the little flurry of rain which will help lay this 




126 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



blinding dust. He does not seem to me fit to minister in the grand 
old mosque, and yet I've no doubt he takes as a patron, lago Mata- 
moras (Kill the Moors) the battle saint of Spain." 

" Next to the mosque," said Maud, " I think the palms that 
Abdurrahman planted are the most suggestive of the Moorish re- 
mains. Their feathery branches droop like funeral plumes over a 
a hearsed city and a buried caliphate." 




SEVILLE. 



127 



CHAPTER X. 

SEVILLE. 

SEVILLE was a refreshing contrast to Cordova. It had a newer, 
cleaner, gayer look. People dressed better, and wore happier 
expressions. Through street doorways, curtained by a beautifully 
wrought iron gate, — which gave the interior the m37Sterious charm 
which a lace veil adds to a beautiful face, — the girls caught glimpses 
of brilliant gardens. Here were patios filled with blossoming olean- 
ders, oriental palms and tree ferns, and the whole gamut of roses. 
Cacti made a battlefield of one corner, with their myriad lances and 
sanguinary banners, and the starr}^ jessamine lighted a dusky recess 
with its elaborate lamps. In the centre, usually, a cistern or fountain, 
around which, ivy and passion-vine were matted, now and then they 
caught the white gleam of statues, the glitter of gayly enamelled 
faience; and sometimes a senora, fan in hand, rose tranquilly from a 
half hidden chair and glided away from their observation. 

Again they found themselves in the same hotel with Lord Gub- 
bins and suite, but they saw very little of Mr. Featherstonhaugh, for 
Lord Gubbins appeared to have noticed that he took pleasure in their 
society, and threw every obstacle possible in the way of their 
meeting^. 

They met him in the beautiful gardens of the Alcazar, but his 
emplo3^er was leaning upon his arm and whisked him away before he 
could scarcely more than bow. The Alcazar is a palace built for the 
Spanish king, Don Pedro the Cruel, by Moorish workmen under the 
direction of the architect of the Alhambra. The coloring and designs 
traced upon its walls are approached onl}" in the finest India shawls. 



128 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

Domes rise like a succession of intersecting soap-bubbles, and the stal- 
actite stucco drops its vivid prisms in honey-comb and other intricate 
patterns. All this can be seen in better preservation than at the 
Alhambra. We feel, however, that the colors are too fresh, there is 
too much gilding, and after a protracted promenade through the 
palace, Mrs. Arnold declared that she sympathized w^ith the Spaniards 
v^ho w^hitew^ashed these vvalls, w^hich their successors have since 
restored. The succession of brilliant, gaudy coloring fatigued their 
eyes, and the intricate arabesques confused and wearied their minds. 

" I can imagine," said Saint, " that a king, seated in the Hall 
of Ambassadors, might lose the thread of a delicate bit of diplomacy 
while his mind was wandering in the vain attempt to trace a bit 
of Cufic strap- work." 

The great cathedral, with the slender Giralda by its side, a tower 
built by the Moors, and as beautiful as the campaniles of Florence 
and Venice, interested them quite as much. 

Seville is noted as the residence of Murillo; many of his paint- 
ings are preserved in the city. In the cathedral hangs one of 
surpassing beauty, a St. Francis falling into an ecstasy before the 
apparition of the infant Christ. Murillo seems to have had three dis- 
tinctive fields of excellence. He painted equally well the Virgin 
and child, monks and saints moved by religious rapture, and little 
street-gamins, ragged brigands of the gutter. Plenty of these, with 
bright, saucy faces, the girls saw seated in a shadowy angle, or 
basking lizard-like in the sun, while they enjoyed a luncheon of a 
crushed melon or other luscious fruit. One little fellow, who evi- 
dently served upon occasion as altar-boy, they saw in the sacristy, 
divested of his lace canonicals, busily engaged in scouring the tall 
candlesticks. 

One morning on their return from visiting the House of Pilate, — 
a curious old mansion built many years before by a resident of 
Seville, after a return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and sup- 



SEVILLE. 



129 
the orirls found 



^' A fig for Lord 



posed to be a model of Pilate's palace in Jerusalem 
Mrs. Arnold radiantly happy. 

"What has occurred?" Maud asked. "Has Lord Gubbins 
requested the honor of an introduction?" 

Mrs. Arnold tossed her head in fine scorn 
Gubbins. I am more 
faithful to my old friends 
than that." 

" Ah ! what old friend 
have you met in Seville ? " 

" Never mind. B}' the 
way, Maud, dear, that old 
hat of yours is shockingh' 
shabby, take my purse 
and buy yourself a new 
one." 

" But, Lily, are you 
wild? This is not Paris. 
Nobody wears hats here. 
I do not believe there is 
a milliners shop in the 
city." 

" Yes, there is, a new 
one just established, next 
door to the barber's-shop 
that Saint said might have 
been occupied by Rossi- 
ni's Figaro. It is quite a novelty, the Spanish ladies are flocking to 
it and discarding their mantillas en massed 

"What a pity!" said Maud; "when the national custom of draping 
the head and shoulders in a black-lace veil is so much more effective 
and artistic." 




A MURILLO ALTAR BOY. 



I30 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



"No national custom can long resist Parisian fashion. The 
peaked hat of Tyrol, the folded kerchief of the Roman girl, the quaint 
cap of the German peasant, all give way before it." 

"That is true enough, but think how stupid it will be to travel a 
few years hence, and find everywhere the same regulation hat and 

feathers. I am filled with resentment 
against this milliner, whoever she may be, 
who is trying to do away with the beautiful 
Andalusian mantilla." 

In their next walk the girls passed the 




modiste's window. 



" Let us go in, 



said 



Barbara ; " the hats are uncommonly 
pretty." 

They were waited upon by a Spanish 
girl. " The proprietor was out," she ex- 
plained, "but he would return presently," 
and she handed Maud a business card. 

" So," exclaimed Maud, " the milliner 
is a man! Can you imagine any real live 
man accepting such a belittling womanish 
employment?" 

" Girls ! " cried Barbara, as she read the 
address on the card, "of all persons in the 
world, who do you imagine it is?" 
" Not Armand Le Prince! " 
" Read for yourself." 

" I thought he had decided to become an artist." 
"So he is, an ^artiste des modes^ and he calls this an artistic 
creation." 

"Girls, this is too much." 

"Come with me, quick," Maud begged; "let us get away before 
he returns." 



THE GIRALDA. 



SEVILLE, 



131 



'^ Saint can go with you," replied Barbara. " I really want to buy 
a new hat." 

" You have seven, now." 




HE CALLS THIS AN ARTISTIC CREATION. 



" No matter," replied Barbara, mischievously, " I want something 
that will attract Lord Gubbins' attention; I have paraded the whole 
seven before him without making the least impression. I must have 
something in the English style. How would this Gainsborough, 
lined with Vesuvius-red and tipped with heliotrope-plumes, do.^" 



J ^2 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

"Atrocious, vile! Some one is coming; I fly." 

As Maud and Saint vanished through one door, young Monsieur 
Le Prince entered by another. He seemed delighted to see Barbara, 
and shook hands with her very cordially. " At last! " he exclaimed 
in French, " we meet once more. I have looked for 3^ou every- 
where." 

"Your mother wrote us," Barbara replied, " that you were at 
Valencia." 

" I travel. I establish maiso?is des juodes in each city of impor- 
tance which I visit. I have opened five flourishing shops. I have 
the honor of being the pioneer of fashion. I feel like one of the early 
Jesuit Fathers converting the savages. I am the missionary of' good 
taste, the pioneer of artistic costume." He paused, and pointed with 
pride to the array of bonnets. " Has she seen them? Does she know 
that I have designed them? Ah! she could not have failed to guess 
that I thought only of her when I twined that wreath of forget-me- 
not, with this scarf of silver-shot gauze around that petit chapeau a la 
Marie Antoinette. Here is one of peach-blossom satin, a la Fanchon, 
the whole brim covered with rose-petals, and the crown, strings 
of point d'Alencon. In the first I thought of her as unconscious 
statuesque. In the second she is coquettish, and in this," — he lifted as 
he spoke, an elaborate bridal-bonnet, intricately beaded with seed- 
pearls, — "can you not guess my aspirations when I designed this 
triumph of m}^ art?" 

" It is very prett}^," Barbara replied, half amused and half dis- 
pleased by this odd mixture of fashion and sentiment. 

" One cannot design objects of art," Armand continued, " which 
are to become a part, so to speak, of lovely womankind, without 
feeling for her a profound respect and sympathy. I have studied her 
in all her phases until I can almost boast that I understand her. 
Here is a simple shade hat for the sea-shore; what more useful, more 
unpretending, more modestly elegant? Here is a dress hat for the 



SEVILLE. j,^ 

opera; it is one to make the observer forget the acting, the music, or 
to remember it only as an accompaniment to an ethereal part of the 
face which this bonnet is designed to frame and to beautify. Here is 
a v/idow*s bonnet. Regard, and tell me, could not the most deeply 
wounded heart find an asylum behind that veil, from the curious 
glances of an unfeeling world? Would not such mourning as that, 
such an admirable quality of crape, and such expensive bugles, solace 
the manes of the departed, and render the stricken object interesting, 
even fascinating^ in hei woe?" 

Armand Le Prince paused, profoundly touched by his own 
eloquence. 

" I fear," said Barbara, " that you have not discovered the way to 
please Maud." 

"No?" he exclaimed, with what seemed to his listener an aiffecta- 
tion of despair. "You told me that she worshipped beauty and 
admired genius, and my chef d''ceuvres are true works of art. 
Advise me, kind friend, what shall I do?" 

" If you want ni}' honest advice," replied Barbara, " give up 
thinking of Maud, entirely. She will never care for you." 

" But I admire American girls so deeply," he replied. " They 
have espi'it and even learning, with a knowledge of the world, 
combined with an innocence which is as charming as it is wonderful. 
I have set my heart on marrjnng an American girl. Ah! Made- 
moiselle, if you would have the goodness to try on that white satin 
hat, it is possible — that it would be even more becoming to your 
style of beauty, than I had imagined it would be to Mademoiselle 
Maud." 

Barbara dropped the exquisite bridal bonnet as though it had 
burned her fingers, and with an indignant look left the store. "And 
to think that I really pitied him," she said to herself, " and imagined 
that his feeling for Maud was something serious. Men are perfectly 
horrid!" 



l^A THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XL 

GRANADA. 

'' I ^HE girls did not again meet Armand Le Prince in Seville, 
-*- though they passed his little shop not infrequently, and always 
noticed that it was an object of interest to the Andalusian senoritas. 
The pretty, black-eyed girls who worked in the tobacco factory, 
paused as they passed, the natural rose, tucked coquettishl}^ over the 
left ear shining like a star in their jet-black braids, as they admired and 
enjoyed the less becoming coiffures displayed behind Armand's 
windows. Maud groaned in spirit. " They will invest in cheap hats, 
and the distinctive Spanish costume will be lost." As they whirled 
away up the mountains on their way to Granada, Maud's spirits rose. 
Barbara divined the reason. 

"You need not congratulate yourself that you have done with 
Armand Le Prince, so easily," she laughed. " He will turn up in 
Portugal, making marmalade and conJitures\ we shall see him in 
paper-cap and white apron, striving to win your affection with -pates 
and gateaux., and sugary bits of confection, as well as honeyed words 
of affection." 

" Barb, Barb ! how absurd you are ! " 

"Not half so absurd as Monsieur Le Prince." 

"But you used to defend him; what has he done to forfeit your 
esteem? " 

" No matter. I am very well content never to mention his name 
again." 

" So am I, peace to his ashes, I mean his bonnets." 

The next day they were in Granada. They rattled through the 



GRANADA. I^y 

town in a noisy diligence, and mounted the long hill crowned by the 
Alhambra. Just outside the walls stood two hotels, the Washington 
Irving and that of the Torre de los Siete Suelos, so called from one 
of the towers of the Alhambra, against which it backs. In spite of the 
name so alluring to American hearts, they took rooms at the hotel of 
the tower, as it offered superior inducements, and had no cause to 
regret their choice. Allowing but little time for rest and refresh- 
ment, they hurried to the palace, pinching their arms as they went, to 
make sure that they were not walking in a dream, so long had they 
looked forward to this visit, the crowning delight of their Spanish 
tour. 

They entered the palace proper by an unpretentious door, and 
found themselves in one of the main courts, that of the Alberca, or 
fish-pond. The central space is occupied by a long tank, or pool, 
filled with darting gold-fish, which disappeared as the girls' shadows 
fell upon the water. The sides of this court were bordered with a 
hedge of myrtle and orange-trees and Japanese medlars, and the 
shrubbery itself is framed by long lines of elegant colonnades, richly 
emblazoned horse-shoe arches, resting upon delicately slender pillars. 
From this court they passed to the great Hall of the Ambassadors, 
which occupies the centre of the Tower of Comares, and is the most 
imposing single apartment of the palace. It was the Sultan's 
audience-chamber, and was well calculated to impress the visitor 
with his magnificence. Its lofty dome, seventy-five feet in height, 
like the palace of King Solomon, is "ceiled in cedar and painted with 
vermilion." 

They stood in the central alcoved-windows which formerly held 
the divan of the sultan, and looked out over the balcony-railing on 
which Irving loved to lean and enjoy the beauty of the landscape, 
the Darro wedding the Xenil at the foot of the town, and the distant 
Vega and Sierras. Passing through the colonnades at the right of the 
fish-pond, they entered the celebrated Court of Lions, the flowering 



138 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



of the entire palace. When standing in the Hall of the Ambassadors 
they had been convinced that Moorish art had done its utmost to 
impress the stranger in this public room, with the magnificence of its 
monarch, but, entering the Court of Lions, they saw that a far more 
artistic effect had been achieved, by the grouping of a number of 
smaller, but elegant apartments around this charming couat. 

This v/as the private residence of the sultan. In the centre of the 
marble-paved square stood the fountain from which it was named, 
resting on the backs of twelve heraldic Assyrian-like lions. The 
three salons w^hich open upon this court, — the Hall of the Abencer- 
rages, the Salon of the Two Sisters, and the Plall of Justice, — vie 
with each other in the splendor of their decoration. This suite has 
been called the gem of Arabian art, in Spain. They passed through 
the Hall of the Two Sisters, and entered the niched window, called 
the Boudoir of the Sultana. Here they overlooked the charming 
little garden of Lindaraxa, which lies enshrined like a jewel-box in 
the centre of the palace. Here grow cypresses, oleanders, oranges, 
citrons, and matted beds of rich, dark violets, whose sweet, dusky 
faces reminded them of the houris who once wandered here. On this 
garden looked also the windows of the rooms once occupied by 
Washington Irving. The place, to them, was full of associations with 
this Prince of Magicians, it would not be strange, they thought, if they 
saw his gentle ghost some calm midnight, flitting musingly through 
these deserted chambers, or seated by the blood-stained fountain- 
basin in the Hall of the Abencerrages, hobnobbing with the shade of 
the unfortunate Boabdil, and endeavoring to console him for the loss 
of his kingdom. 

A part of this enchanted building, they were informed, had been 
pulled down by the Emperor Charles V., to make room for his preten- 
tious palace, w^hich, after all, was never completed. 

They explored every nook of the palace proper, from the 
mysterious underground baths and whispering galleries, to the airy 



^'^'n 













CHARLES V. 




FORTUNY S MODEL. 



GRANADA. I^o 

pavilion, called the Tocador de Reina, and for days afterward found 
added pleasure in discovering the beauties of the isolated towers and 
smaller buildings in the vicinity. Irving's Tales of the Alhambra 
was their guide-book, they sought out with avidity every place which 
he had mentioned, and bought photographs with which to "inter-lay" 
their copies of his works. 

Lord Gubbins and Mr. Featherstonhaugh were also in Granada, 
and often they formed but one party. Maud self-sacrificingly aided her 
sister to entertain his lordship, in order that Saint might stroll about 
with Mr. Featherstonhaugh. The Torre de la Vela was one of their 
favorite resorts at sunset. Here hangs the great alarm bell with the 
silver tongue, a bell which is kept clanging on the anniversary of the 
taking of Granada, for it is believed that the damsel who rings it upon 
that day will secure a husband within the year. When on the sec- 
ond of Januar}', 1492, the city was surrendered to the Spaniards, Fer- 
dinand and Isabella waited without with the army until they saw their 
banner hoisted from this tower by Cardinal Mendoza. " As the ex- 
iled and retreating Boabdil turned to cheer or chide his followers," 
says Bulwer, " he saw from his own watch tower, with the sun shining 
full upon its pure and dazzling surface, the silver cross of Spain."" 
" What a panorama must have been visible," mused Mr. Feather- 
stonhaugh, "from this tower upon that occasion. I think Mr. Lockhart 
in one of his translations of Spanish ballads has best realized the vis- 
ion: 

" ' There was crying in Granada when the sun was poing down, 
Some calHng on the Trinity, some calhng on Mahoun ; 
Here passed away the Koran, there in the cross was borne, 
And here was heard the Christian bell, and there the Moorish horn; 
" Te Deum laudamus " was up the Alcala sung, 
Down from the Alhambra's minarets were all the crescents flung ; 
The arms thereon of Aragon and Castile they display ; 
One king comes in in triumph, one weeping, goes away.' " 

Mr. Featherstonhaugh had a fine voice, and he recited the poem with 
so much feeling that no one complimented him at its close. Only 



144 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



Saint looked at him with moist eyes, and he seemed to feel that this 
was compliment enough. 

Maud as usual busied herself with the artistic points of the place* 
To her mind the Spanish artist Fortuny had best interpreted the Al- 
hambra, and she sought eagerly every spot where he had. painted. 
One day there came to the hotel a rough water carrier, who said that 
he had served Fortuny as model; this was enough for Maud, she en- 
gaged the man as guide and made a sketch of his head; unkempt 




A CHILD S FUNERAL. 



hair and bristling chin, low forehead and stolid look, there was noth- 
ing either picturesque or attractive about him, and she wondered what 
the great painter could have seen in him. He rewarded her pains, 
however, with many an anecdote of the brilliant artist, to whom he 
seemed fondly attached. 

Mr. Featherstonhaugh seemed much interested in Maud's sketches 
and enjoyed looking over her portfolio of studies. He presented each 
of the girls with photographs of different views in the Alhambra, and 
Maud in return gave him a number of drawings from her sketch- 
book. He seemed to enjoy Barbara's bright conversation almost as 
much as Saint's singing, and was so impartial in his courtesy that it was 
difficult to tell which of the girls, if any, was now his favorite. 




LOOKING OVER THE PHOTOGRAPHS. 




THE GENERALIFE. 



GRANADA. j.q 

The g3'psy quarter of Granada exercised a fascination over Barbara, 
— the horrible, old crones, the lazy galliard men, sporting velvet cos- 
tumes and smoking endless cigarettes, resembling the lilies of the field 
in immunity from toil and gorgeousness of apparel, and the bold, 
half naked children who clamored for money more as bandits de- 
manding plunder than as beggars asking alms, — all interested her im- 
mensely. 

" I wish I were a man," she said, " that I might study them more 
closely. George Borrow's accounts of adventures with this evil peo- 
ple, of their trickery and theft, of Gil Bias like escapades and his own 
wild rides through wilder regions with the gipsy Antonio, when sell- 
ing the Bible made Borrow also an outlaw, — always excited my 
imagination. I should like to know more about them." 

One day they made an excursion to the Generalife, the summer 
palace of the Moors, which occupies an eminence overlooking the 
Alhambra. They passed a little rabble of children who were stroll- 
ing along in irregular procession, followed by a few elder people. It 
was a school, Maud thought, oft' for a picnic. Four boys in advance 
swung between them by long ribbons a gaudily ornamented raisin- 
box. As they approached nearer they saw that the box was 
uncovered, and that it held a dead baby. It was a shamefully care- 
less funeral. The boys chatted unconcernedly as they walked, and as 
the girls hurried b}', shocked by what they had seen, the bo3's set the 
little coffin down by the side of the road and ran after them to clamor 
for pennies. 

The}/ found the Generalife a garden of delight, shaded with 
oleander trees which seemed bouquets of rockets, and bordered with 
fuchsias, climbing roses and carnations, while the box grew tall and 
hedge-like, or was cut in fantastic forms. But the palace was only a 
villa, a mere mountain resort to which the sultan came for breezes of 
refreshing coolness when the air la}' baked and still in the courts of 
the Alhambra 



jCQ THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XII. 



A BOUQUET OF LEGENDS. 



'TT^HE travellers remained several weeks in Granada, and became 
-"- thoroughly enthusiastic over the Moorish architecture and tra- 
ditions w^ith v^hich the place is full. 

*"■ I do not w^onder," said Barbara, "that Irving wrote so many 
legends; the only thing remarkable is that he could ever hear to stop. 
Why did he never write one about the beautiful palace of the Alcazar 
at Seville? And how could he leave out the Giralda?" 

" Suppose," suggested Maud, " that we write some supplementary 
legends, as nearly in his style as we are able." 

" Capital! " exclaimed Barbara. " Let Saint begin, and -we will all 
follow." 

''^ I never <:6»/^/(^ write a composition," groaned Saint; "how absurd 
to imagine that I can compose a story." 

" If Miss Boylston will permit me I will assist her," Mr. Feather- 
stonhaugh gallantly volunteered ; and accordingly a few days later the 
joint production was read in Mrs. Arnold's parlor. 

Saint took the eas3^-chair diffidently, and explained with a voice 
which trembled somewhat that she was not to be held accountable for 
everything in the legend, as Mr. Featherstonhaugh had written "all 
the silly parts." The girls laughed, and Mr. Featherstonhaugh hid 
his face in affected embarrassment behind his portfolio of East Indian 
photographs. 

" Now that, my dear, is hardly polite," demurred Mrs. Arnold. 

"I mean," explained Saint, in some confusion, "that Mr. Feather- 




TOMB OF RUNJEET SING. 



A BOUQUET OF LEGENDS. j-^ 

stonhaugh ivotild insist on the love-making, while I was opposed to 
anything of the sort." 

The idea of that bashful and dignified young Englishman making 
love to any one was so ridiculous that the girls laughed again, and Mr. 
Featherstonhaugh, though he made no pretence of hiding his face, 
was evidently more genuinely embarrassed than before. To cover his 
annoyance, Mrs. Arnold opened the portfolio and took up a view of 
the "Tomb of Runjeet Sing." 

" I have brought this evening," Mr. Featherstonhaugh hastened to 
explain, " such of my photographs of Indian architecture as present 
points of resemblance with that of the Alhambra. This building at 
Lahore, though quite modern, has much of Saracenic magnificence 
in its red and white mosaics of lilies and roses and in its expansive tank, 
without which a Moor could not imagine a palace. Other points of 
resemblance wmII be touched upon as the story progresses. Indeed, 
you may regard these photographs as its fitting illustrations.'' 

There was a pause, and then Saint lifted her manuscript and 
read — 

THE LEGEND OF THE ARCHITECT'S DAUGHTER. 

Aben Cencid was one of the happiest men in Granada. And what 
wonder? As Master Architect of the Alhambra he had planned and 
superintended the execution of the intricate and gorgeous decorations 
which had completely satisfied his luxurious and fastidious lord, Prince 
Yusuf I., and had dazzled the eye and captivated the imagination of 
every other beholder. 

In return, his Sultan had loaded him with benefits and assigned 
him a suite of apartments within the walls of the Alhambra near his 
royal person. 

The Architect Cencid was a man of great talent and exquisite 
taste. He had travelled extensively in the Orient; and had brought 
back with him a camel's load of parchments, plans, and drawings, 



jq. THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

copied in the most celebrated of the temples and places of Islam. 
Constantinople, Tunis, Cairo, Bagdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, and 
Mecca were represented in his portfolios, but it was in India that he had 
travelled and studied most extensively. He had stood enraptured 
before Aladdin's Gate at Delhi, a portal so ornate that it is no wonder 
that it is said to be the work of the Genii of the Lamp. Its dentel- 
lated arch and banderoles, and long inscriptions in twisted strap-work 
characters were indelibly stamped upon his mind. 

"Please Allah to send me a sovereign mighty enough to command 
it," he vowed to himself, " and I will make the gate of the Sultan 
Ala Oudin orow and blossom in another land." 

Though his attention had been first turned to architecture in India 
there were impressions made upon his mind which influenced his 
career long before. His first education in Decorative Art had been 
received in Persia, where, the son of a shawl-weaver of Ispahan, he had 
watched his mother "throw the shuttle across the loom," noting with 
wide, observant eyes the growth "of odorless roses and the weaving of 
gold-arabesqued arches and columns. These intricate pattern laby- 
rinths and color harmonies blended and mingled in his brain as in the 
thousand shiftings of the kaleidoscope, and his busy fingers continu- 
ally reproduced the fertile suggestions of his imagination. He had 
left Ispahan early, to study with the learned men of Bagdad and fit 
himself for the profession of a scribe, but copying interminable Korans 
was not entirely to the young man's taste, and one day he appeared 
in Damascus, working with gold leaf and colors as an illuminator. 
Then came his chance visit to India, and suddenly, standing in a court 
of the Pagoda of Chillambaran, there came upon him the conviction 
that this was the career for which he was born, to build a palace 
which should stand forever. But where should he find the prince who 
would put the means at his disposal to gratify this ambition? Sar- 
acenic magnificence was at its height in Spain, and to the Court of 
Granada he came. Little b}'' little, by romantic adventure, by native 




ALADDIN S GATE. 



A BOUQUET OF LEGENDS. 



157 



talent, and by unpoetic drudging industry, he had worked himself up 
to his present resplendent position, and it was not surprising that he 
was a proud as well as happy man. Dearer to his pride and heart 
than any ot' his achievements or possessions, was the architect's 
gazelle-ej-ed daughter Aicha, a maiden on whose accomplishments 
he had spent more thought and care than on the entire decoration of 
the Alhambra. He was equally satisfied in the result, and now that 
his great lite work for his sovereign was completed, he contemplated 
many days of reposeful charm, stretched upon his divan and lulled by 
Aicha's soulful voice and the soft plashing of his own fountain. 

What was his disgust at the information that the Spanish King, 
Don Pedro the Cruel, having heard of the glories of the Alhambra, 
desired that his brother sovereign would lend him the clever archi- 
tect, who had accomplished this miracle of beauty, to decorate his 
own Christian Palace at Seville. His liege lord Yusuf was anxious 
to be upon good terms with his powerful neighbor, and the architect 
had only to pack up his designs, and, selecting a corps of able assist- 
ants, to set out for Seville, hoping that he might have the good 
fortune to return with his head safely on his shoulders. He was met 
upon the frontier with an escort sent by the Christian King, and was 
comforting his heart with the reflection that though in the power of 
an unscrupulous tyrant, he was more apt to be serviceable to him 
alive than dead, and that he bore no riches of any kind to tempt his 
cupidity, when he was startled by the apparition of his favorite daugh- 
ter Aicha, who had followed him at a distance upon her palfrey, and 
who only appeared when she knew it was too late for her to be sent 
back. She pleaded as her excuse that she longed to see the master- 
piece with which her father would put to shame the architects of 
the Christian, and that she could not bear to be separated from her 
father. To the first argument Aben Cencid replied that he had 
already built for her own dwelling a kiosk overlooking the Darro, 
similar in style, and only inferior in size, to the Palace Bhowan, and 



iS8 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



what more exquisite casket could even the pearl of womankind 
desire ? 

Mr. Featherstonhaugh here interrupted the story to say that the 
allusion to the pavilions of Copal Bhowan was really an anachron- 




PALACE OF COPAL BHOWAN. 

ism, as the Tower of the Infantas, which might be taken as the typical 
home of Aicha, antedated the Indian Palace by several centuries. 

"Never mind, never mind," chimed in the girls, "there is some- 
thing of a resemblance. Don't spoil the story with mischievous 
dates." 




PAGODA OF CHILLAMBARAN. 



A BOUQUET OF LEGENDS. j5j 

"The architect," pursued Saint, "while he trembled for his 
daughter's safety allowed her to continue with him, and at first his 
fears seemed to have been groundless, for Aben Cencid and his 
little suite were treated with consideration on their arrival at the 
palace, and were permitted to erect for themselves temporary pavil- 
ions in the royal garden. The king had either not been informed of 
the presence of the architect's daughter, or else he regarded the fact 
as of little importance, and Aicha in her latticed boudoir, in the 
midst of the secluded garden, was even more completely shut away 
from the w^orld than in her Tower upon the Darro. The garden 
walls shut out all prospect of the Christian city which she had so 
longed to see. On an upper terrace, at the further end of the park, 
people employed about the palace sometimes appeared for a few 
moments and then vanished within the arcades, no one strolled near 
her window, perhaps because the king had given orders that the 
Moors should not be disturbed; not a sound stirred the leafy stillness 
except the song of the nightingales and the ripple of the brooks 
which watered the garden. She was quite alone, for her father 
and his workmen repaired ever}^ day to the palace, ornamenting its 
domes with many colored prismatic stalactites, and covering its walls 
with labyrinthine designs in Cufic strapwork, and combinations of 
tints which even now delight and dazzle the beholder. While its 
main entrance had not the grandeur of the single imposing arch 
of the garden gate of the Taj, there were many points in the 
interior that afforded a resemblance to that mausoleum " built by 
Titans and finished by jewellers." For the lapis lazuli, coral, 
turquoises, sapphires, and diamonds, he was indeed obliged to 
substitute corresponding colors in enamelled porcelain. He had 
brought with him from Granada a drove of mules and donkeys, 
laden with paniers filled with glazed tiles, whose metallic reflec- 
tions the Moors alone knew how to fabricate, and walls and 
pavements as of tender-tinted gems sprinkled in intricate forms like 



J 52 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

those of snow crystals, spread a refreshing glistening coolness in the 
great patio, and along shady corridors. Transparent walls wrought 
into lace-work, fringed arches, and slender columns rose as by magic, 
while Aben Cencid, in the enthusiasm of his art, forgot that he was 
enhancing the glory of a Christian monarch, and labored to make 
the palace of the Alcazar worthy of the inspection of Mahomet and 
of Allah, the great architect who tried every man's work. The 
dome of the Hall of the Ambassadors, a half orange in shape, and 
glorious now with dusky gilding, he strove to make his masterpiece; 
introducing, from time to time, into the design sentences in Arabic, 
for he cherished a vain hope that sometime Seville might be won 
back by the Moors, and some Khalef of the future would read how 
Aben Cencid, prophet as well as architect, had dedicated the Alcazar 
to the heirs of Abdarrahman the Great. 

Meantime Aicha, locked in her pavilion, and curtained b}^ a lux- 
uriant rose-tree which had been trained over her bower, gazed 
moodily at the beautiful garden, one of the most curious of Europe. 
Its parterres and fish-ponds, its labyrinths and concealed fountains, 
which sprayed the unwary wanderer as his foot touched a spring in 
the paving, its grottoes and kiosks, w^ere all unexplored by her, — the 
paradise was a prison, and she wished that she had not left Granada. 
The only person who traversed this part of the garden was a young 
artist, who entered by a postern gate, of which he evidently kept the 
key, and who repaired to the palace each morning about an hour later 
than her father. He was engaged in painting the portrait of Maria 
Padilla, the lady love of the king, and he came and went as a priv- 
ileged person. This artist, attracted by the sound of Aicha's lute, 
discovered the fair musician one morning, and after that came earlier 
each morning, and lingered for a few moments before passing to the 
presence of his patroness. 

He had but recently returned, he told her, from pursuing his 
studies in Italy, where he had been instructed in the mannerisms of 



pi^iiipffiinBiitiiiiiii 




A BOUQUET OF LEGENDS. 



165. 



the Byzandne school. They talked together in a mixture of broken 
Arabic and Spanish, and considering how little either knew of the 
other's language, they got along admirably. He praised her father's 
work with all the confidence and condescension with which a tyro 
will criticize or compliment the chef cV ceitv res of a master. Aicha 
was pleased, and listened eagerl}- to all that he told her. It was fit- 
ting, he said, that the Alcazar should be finished in Moorish style, 
since the building was erected by the Moorish architect, Jalubi, for 
the great caliph, Abdarrahman. The Arabian style of decoration was 
not without merit, though its dentellated lace-work arches were a 
flat imitation of Indian workmanship, as might be seen in the courts of 
the palace at Tanjore. 

Here again Mr. Featherstonhaugh groaned. "Your young artist, 
Miss Cecilia, was considerably out of his reckoning there, for the 
Tanjore palace is a far more modern building than the Alcazar." 

" But there are the fringed arches," suggested Maud. 

" Certainly, but the Hindoos adopted them along with the 
Mussulman rule, instead of the Saracens copying them from the 
Hindoos." 

"Too much architecture," grumbled Barb, "do go on with the 
story." 

" The great fault that I have to find with Moorish artists," contin- 
ued Rizzi, " is that they do not represent the human face. As for 
myself I would rather paint the portrait of the architect's daughter 
than wear twice her father's honors as decorator of the Alhambra 
and the Alcazar." As he spoke he drew his sketchbook from a wal- 
let and began to dash in a drawing of the fair Aicha. But the young 
girl gave a frightened scream and disappeared from the casement. 
The next day, Rizzi found her at the window, though her face was 
carefully shrouded with envious haic and serroual. On asking the 
cause of her alarm, the fair Aicha informed him that Mahomet 
had revealed that artists would be required at the Day of Judgment to 



J 56 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

supply souls for every representation of a human being which they 
had created, and failing to comply with this demand, would be 
obliged to forfeit their own. 

"Then your solicitude, charming Aicha, was entirely on my 
account! " exclaimed the enraptured artist. "Know then, celestial 
damsel, that I gladly run this risk for the sake of possessing a faint 
transcript of your heavenly beauty." So saying, he prepared to begin 
her portrait for a second time, praying her to lay aside her disfiguring 
veil and allow the full moon of her effulgent countenance to beam 
upon him. But Aicha still objected, this time on her own account. 
Even if Rizzi were so mad as to draw upon himself banishment from 
Heaven for the sake of her portrait, and she so hard-hearted as to 
allow him so to peril his eternal happiness, suppose for a moment that 
portrait should reach the throne of The Merciful before its original, 
and being provided with the soul destined for the real Aicha, should 
pass into Paradise. What then would be her own lamentable case on 
being informed that there was no soul* for her? 

"Nay," exclaimed the infatuated artist, "you should have my 
soul, you have it now, and I will wander soulless to all eternity unless 
you vouchsafe to share it with me." He had hardly uttered this 
romantic avowal, when a heavy hand was laid upon his shoulder. It 
was that of the architect, Aben Cencid, who had returned most 
inopportunel}' from the Alcazar, and had overheard the latter part of 
the conversation. 

" Your name, presumptuous youth? " exclaimed the sage, as, white 
with rage, he throttled the j^oung man with so persuasive a grip that 
he was unable to pronounce a syllable. 

" Slay him not, my father," cried Aicha, " he is a designer and an 
illuminator like thyself, — he is the talented Diego Rizzi." 

" I see, indeed, that he is a designing young man," replied the 
architect, grimly, "and I was proceeding to illuminate the pages 
of his understanding, touching the etiquette to be observed toward 



A BOUQUET OF LEGENDS. 1 67 

3'oung Moorish ladies, but it is well that you have told me both 
his name and his calling, for my royal master has written me to bring 
back with me to Granada, a Christian artist to paint some figure- 
pictures tor his amusement, which, if they are well done, shall be 
hung in his own apartments." 

" I thought,'" mused Diego, gently rubbing his twisted cervical 
vertebra, " that the Mohammedan religion forbade the painting of the 
human figure ? " 

" So it does," replied the astute Cencid. " So it does to the faith- 
ful, but the prophet and his followers waste no lamentations over any 
fate which infidel Christians may choose to bring upon themselves, 
and since 3'ou have already forfeited your soul many times, I see not 
why you should scruple to do so once more, so that my master may 
profit at the expense of your recklessness. I have received a signed 
passport from the king allowing me to journey to and from Granada 
as often as I choose. I purpose to repair thither upon the morrow to 
restore this damsel to the safe-keeping of her mother. Will 3'ou ac- 
compan}' us upon our journey and undertake this work for the Khalef 
Yusuf?" 

The young artist considered for a moment. What proof had he 
that this was not a trap to entice him upon Moorish ground and then 
slay him? The sage read his doubts in his face, and, drawing a 
parchment from the folds of his robe, showed the demand for the ser- 
vices of a Christian artist signed by the hand of Yusuf the Magnifi- 
cent. " This," said he, " shall be your safe conduct." 

The young man still hesitated. He had already disclosed to Cen- 
cid the real motive which would take him to Granada, but with the 
futile prevarication common to lovers he did not wish it to appear 
that this was a suflScient object. "Are there," he asked, "any traces 
in your vaunted Alhambra of the architecture of the Orient." 

Aben Cencid was at first so angry at the implied insult that for a 
moment he did not discern the transparency of the ruse. 



1 68 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

" You must visit Hindostan itself," he cried, " for nowhere else, 
except in Granada, will you find such golden domes and jewelled 
minarets. Nowhere else " 

" Stay, stay," cried Diego. " It is enough, I go." 

On the morrow the little train of the architect as it wound toward 
Granada counted one donkey the more than it had numbered on its 
march toward Seville. How Diego Rizzi prospered with his painting 
and his wooing we leave it for our successor to relate.'''' 

"Is that all?" asked Mrs. Arnold, wakened by the silence from a 
refreshing nap. 

" Mr. Featherstonhaugh," remarked Maud, with decision, " you 
wrote every bit about Diego Rizzi." 

"You are a young woman of remarkable discernmejit," replied 
the young Englishman. " I confess that Miss Cecilia tired of the task 
after the party reached Seville, and I took it up at that point." 

" I was positive that Saint never could have written anything so 
silly^'' Maud replied, with great satisfaction. 

" But think," exclaimed Barbara, "how heavy it would have been 
with all that architecture if there had been no love-making in it. Talk 
about being crushed under the car of Juggernaut! Why we had all 
the temples of India piled on us." 

" You should mix the light and the heavy and take a fair average," 
said Saint. 

" Given the problem," remarked Barbara, thoughtfully, " to mix 
thoroughly a million tons of rock-hewn temples and a million gallons 
of gas — result, explosion and a general wreck." 

Mr. Featherstonhaugh laughed good humoredly. "We consign 
the fragments," he said, "to you. Miss Barbara, for reconstruction." 

Barbara, however, did not care to carry on the story of the archi- 
tect's daughter. " Let us imagine," she said, " that in some way Diego 
carries the young woman back to Seville as his bride, and let me be- 
gin anew." 



A BOUQUET OF LEGENDS. j^j 

Two days later, as they sat together in the garden of Lindaraxa, 
Barbara read her legend. " I have tried," she said, by way of preface, 
" to keep closer to Irving than you have done. You must try to imagine 
that he wrote the story, and that I found it while rummaging in his 
room over yonder. When I say / in the reading it is Irving that 
speaks, not Barbara Acheson, and so — attention, company, to — 



THE LEGEND OF THE DAMASCENED KEY. 

In a little tour of exploration shortly after my installation as a den- 
izen of the Alhambra, I discovered a small postern gate leading from 
the garden of Lindaraxa to the ravine of the Darro, outside the walls 
of the Palace. It occurred to me that this gate would be a conven- 
ient mode of egress or ingress for me, communicating, as it did, almost 
directly with my own apartment, and I asked Tia Antonio at our next 
meeting if she could furnish me with the key. This worthy custo- 
dian tried all the keys upon her chatelaine, but could find none which 
would fit the complicated and rusty old Moorish lock. 

" That must be one of the keys which Boabdil carried away with 
him," she said, jestingly, as she finally gave up the attempt to open 
the gate. "You see the path leading from the door is completely 
grass-grown. I cannot remember that it has ever been opened. We 
might have an impression taken in wax of the lock and a key made^ 
for no modern one would fit it. See, it throws back three bolts instead 
of one; these old Moors knew how to work in iron. There is a chest 
in one of the corridors which remained unlocked for a hundred years, 
for no Spanish artificer was wise enough to comprehend its manner 
of construction. Sleep soundly, senor, you are free from intrusion 
from this quarter." 

I thought so myself, but a few mornings thereafter, as I sat at my 
open window musing of the former occupants of these oriental cham- 
bers, — of the gallant Abencerrages, the fair Lindaraxa, the cruel 
Hassan and the unfortunate el Chico; I fancied that the gate was ajar, 



jy2 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

and as the mo.on rose higher in the heavens I saw that this was un- 
mistakably the case. I did not investigate the matter at once, for I 
was exceedingly weary and my head was filled a drowsy humming, 
as of bees in a field of clover; the explanation being that I had just 
returned from passing the evening with the Veteran in his nest in the 
Torre del Vino; and he had made me taste some marvellous wine of 
Xeres; which, from its effects, I suspect to have been left buried in 
the town by the Moors themselves. I sat in a semi-conscious state 
for some time, my head resting upon my arm, and my arm upon 
the window-shelf, when suddenly I felt myself passing from the 
actual world into one of phantasmagoria. Lights twinkled from the 
windows and arcades of the palace. There was a rush of waters, 
and the stopped fountains gushed anew, filling the place with a 
water symphony, bubbling with fairy laughter, plashing in the basins, 
dripping with a silvery tinkle upon the pavement, and rippling away 
in the marble channels with a multitudinous repetition of musical 
sounds, alone sufficient to intoxicate the senses; so that I could 
fancy a composer endeavoring to reduce this wild minstrelsy to a 
musical formula, to become drunk with water instead of wine. I 
did not listen long to these sounds, for from the Court of Lions 
swelled a distant inurmur of Oriental music, a confused mingling of 
drum, Castanet, lute and harp. I sprang to m}" feet, determined to 
fathom the mystery, and descending a little staircase which I had 
discovered in the thickness of the wall of the Tower of Comares, I 
traversed the apartments of the Bath, and mounting a similar flight 
in the wall of the Tower of the Two Sisters, found myself in a little 
room formerly connected with the royal harem and commanding a 
view by means of latticed windows, both of the Court of Lions and 
of the interior of the Hall of the Two Sisters. The latter apartment 
first attracted my fascinated gaze. It was filled with fair female 
forms, attired in all the silken luxury of Oriental magnificence. 
Ladies in caftans and embroidered vests of amber, peacock blue, ruby, 




MAUSOLEUM. GOLCONDA. 



A BOUQUET OF LEGENDS. I^c 

milk}^ white or emerald, were seated, conversing merrily, and partak- 
ing of sweet meats, passed by slaves on gilded trays. Rich perfumes 
were burning in incense burners, and rose-water was sprinkled at 
intervals to cool the air. Presently conversation was hushed, and 
from a door opposite my window a young girl, shrouded in a robe 
of white and gold damask, was led in by two elderly females and 
passed around the entire company. She threw aside her disfiguring 
veil, and I could see that her face was very beautiful, and that she 
wept as though her heart would break. I sympathized with her sin- 
cerel}', until I reflected that this ceremony was one of the affectations 
of a Moorish wedding, that no bride received her congratulations 
without simulating grief, and a degree of despair, which was often 
warranted by the events of succeeding years. The bride in question, 
having made the circuit of the room, seated herself in one of the 
alcoved windows, and a party of dancing girls in gauzy garments 
entered and executed a dance in the centre of the room, a delirious 
tornado of glancing arms, undulating bodies and whirling drapery. 
I turned from this wild scene and looked from the other window 
across the patio to the Hall of the Abencerrages. Seated about the 
Fountain of Lions, the musicians were filling the air with muffled 
drumming and strumming, and slaves were passing in and out under 
the fringed arches, bearing substantial dishes on which the bride- 
groom and his friends were to feast. I rubbed my eyes and recog- 
nized the fact that I had temporarily taken leave of my senses. This 
was not an ordinar}^ dream, for I was conscious of moving about, 
and yet my judgment told me that what I saw and heard could only 
be illusory and fantastical. I determined to hasten back to my own 
chamber and get safely to bed before the hallucination should take 
on a more disagreeable form. "The Manzanilla was drugged," 1 
reasoned to myself " I have taken kif, hasheesh, or some narcotic, 
with the power of increasing mental activity a thousandfold. I will 
brew myself a cup of black coffee as an antidote, and endeavor 



176 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



to escape a permanent accession of lunacy." I remember nothing 
from this point until I awoke in my own bed with the sunlight across 
my face. " Strange dream," I said to myself, as I dressed rapidly, 
" I must call upon the Veteran and see how he has passed the night." 
And then, to reassure myself of the unreality of my experience, I 
went over the ground which I had traversed the night before; and 
found, as I expected, that the fountains were silent, the halls tenant- 
less. Not a trace of the midnight revelry which I had seen or fan- 
cied that I had seen. I returned to my room, and leaning from my 
window philosophized on the force of the imagination, when again I 
noticed that the postern gate in the garden of Lindaraxa was ajar. 
"This time," I said, "there is no glamour of midnight wine or fancy 
to mislead me." I descended resolutely to the garden, and opened 
the gate. The grass around was freshly trampled, and there was a 
trail leading up from the ravine from the cave dwelling of the gyp- 
sies, which honeycombed the opposite clifl', that could only have 
been made by a numerous company. As I re-entered the gate, I saw 
the reason that it had not been locked. Some unknown hand had 
dropped the key, which I now saw gleaming in a crevice of the 
threshold. I had this tangible proof that the vision of the night pre- 
vious was an actual experience. The key itself was a large one of 
curious workmanship. Composed of polished steel, it was richly 
damascened in gold and silver, and amongst its arabesque foliations 
I could distinctly trace a running line of Arabic characters. 

I was considered extremely eccentric for haunting these chambers, 
and I kept my own counsel concerning my ghostly visitants, nothing 
doubting that the recital of what I had seen would confirm my 
neighbors in the opinion that I was mad. Long after I showed the 
key to an expert who easily made out the inscription: — "The king 
of all the earth shall open; the Khalif, the heir of Anassir, shall 
enter." 

Next day, Maud, still in the character of Irving, followed with a — 



A BOUQUET OF LEGENDS. j^g 

SEQUEL TO THE LEGEND OF THE DAMASCENED KEY. 

When about to return to America, having bidden adieu to my 
beloved Alhambra, it occurred to me that I would accept the invita- 
tion of a Jewish acquaintance of mine, a merchant residing in Tetuan 
in Barbar}', to cross into Africa and make the acquaintance of the real 
Moors, the descendants of the exiles of Granada. 

I found much in this strange city to interest me, much which 
served as a commentary on what I had observed and studied in Spain. 
My impressions were lively and varied, but I cannot record them 
here. I shall only mention one incident. I sat in my friend's bazaar, 
one day, a mere niche in the wall, no bigger than the show-window 
of an ordinary shop, and watched the motley crowd which surged and 
jostled its way through the narrow street. My friend explained that 
this was a Bedouin from the desert, that, a pirate from the Riff, 
one was a Nubian in the employ of a grandee, another a santo or 
maniac, adored as a supernatural being, when I perceived a troop of 
strange beggars, who received the contributions of the charitable with 
a certain air of distinction, as though it were a species of tribute to 
which they were entitled. I noticed, too, that while the santos re- 
ceived only copper, that silver coins were placed in the tambourine of 
the child who acted as receiver for this company. 

" They are the descendants," my friend explained, " of Boabdil the 
Unfortunate. They live at Fez, but make frequent pilgrimages, 
in which they are occasionally joined by their entire tribe. They are 
on their way now to Mecca." 

As he ceased speaking, a group which had especially attracted my 
attention, on account of its resemblance to some old Spanish altar- 
pieces representing the Holy Family, paused in front of my friend's 
shop. The group consisted of a tall and handsome Moor, rather too 
young to represent the Joseph of the Flight into Egypt, but, like him, 
leading by the halter a white mule, on which was seated a veiled 



l8o THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

Madonna with a babe enveloped in the folds of her haic. The Moor 
inquired for certain commodities, and while he bargained, we entered 
into conversation. " Is it true," I asked, " that you are indeed of that 
royal race of Granada?" 

The Moor replied with a dignified gesture of assent. 

" And is it also true that the Moors meditate a future invasion of 
Spain and the reconquest of their ancient possessions? Do you hope 
that some day a descendant of yours will hold his court in the Hall 
of the Ambassadors of the Alhambra?" 

He bowed gravely and with a certain dignity replied in Arabic: 

"Allah will open and the Khalif will enter." 

I know nothing of the language of the ancient Moors, but this 
was the sentence damascened upon my talismanic key; it had become 
indelibly impressed upon my memory. I started, and a sudden idea 
occurred to me. 

" I see that you understand Spanish since you answer my ques- 
tion," I continued; "will you not kindly answer in Spanish a 
few questions which are not prompted by idle curiosity but by heart- 
felt sympathy for the wrongs of your race. It is commonly reported 
that the people of Morocco retain the title-deeds and maps, and even 
the keys of their estates across the Strait of Gibraltar, and that some 
day they will reclaim them when an avenger shall arise like the Sul- 
tan Selim to lead them to the slaughter of their hereditary foes." 

The eye of the young man kindled, his cheek flushed. 

" The map of my estates in Granada is drawn indelibly here," he 
replied, placing his hand upon his heart; "my title deed I keep with- 
in this scabbard," {lightly touching his scimetar,) "the key — I 
possessed it in truth once; now it is in the hands of Allah. He will 
open and I shall enter." 

I looked at him searchingly. 

" You have already entered," I said. 

" It is true," he replied, simply, " and my wife has also entered. 



A BOUQUET OF LEGENDS. 



Ibl 



We crossed into Spain witli others of our tribe disguised as strolling 
gypsies. We lived for a time in the caverns of the gypsy quarter, — 



but one night " 

" One night," I interrupted, "of such a date in the Alhambra, you 
w^ere wedded. The bride received her guests in the Hall of the Two 
Sisters, and you feasted with your friends in that of the Abencer- 
rages." 

He stepped back with a look of astonishment. "You are an en- 
chanter," he exclaimed. "You have in your possession the lost ring 
of Solomon with which he commanded the genii." 

"No," I replied, "but I have your lost key," and I drew from an 
inner pocket the curiousl}- damascened bit of metal-work which I had 
found at the gate. The young woman raised her veil and stared at 
the object with wide-eyed surprise. I improved the opportunity by 
a close scrutiny of her face; it was the same which I had seen in the 
Hall of the Two Sisters. "Madam," I said, handing her the key, 
"permit me to present you with this talisman; and when your hus- 
band is seated upon the throne of Spain, may his reign be as noted for 
wisdom and splendor as that of the magnificent Haroun al Raschid, 
and as admirable for piety and tolerance to alien faiths as that of the 
great Abdarrahman of Cordova." 

"This key shall remind me of your good wishes," replied the 
Moor, with gentle courtesy. " If I am ever so fortunate as to regain 
the khalifate of my ancestors, I trust that the Alhambra may once 
more welcome you as its guest and mine." 

We bowed at the same instant, and v/ith such precipitanc}^ that 
the turban of the Moslem softened the concussion of our skulls and 
whisked my spectacles from their seat. Another bow at a more 
measured distance, and the heir of Boabdil continued his journey 
toward Mecca, and I saw him no more. 



1^2 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

LISBON AND CINTRA. 

'' I ^HEIR Stay in Granada was drawing .to a close, and the evening 
-■- before their departure the entire party took a promenade in the 
Alameda. It was their last view of the ga}^ and picturesque Spanish 
people walking to and fro under the Andalusian starlight. The 
band played tumultuously, and the gas jets glittered. The water- 
carriers cried, ^' Agua, ag'ua, mas fria que la nievef'' The 
children munched succarillos, or seed-cakes cut out in the shape 
of bulls, their horns ornamented with bits of blue ribbon. One 
offered Maud an Americano, which proved to be a gingerbread 
savage, with feathers stuck in his cranium. Maud regarded the 
child with surprise for a instant, and then replied, " Thank you, we 
Americans do not eat each other." 

It was as gay to-night in the Alameda as though it were carnival 
time. Priests in long, shovel hats, with thong and crucifix hanging 
by the side of their black gowns, walked with their arms entwined 
with those of jauntily dressed men whose braided queues proclaimed 
them to be bull-fighters. Girls in white satin slippers, black-lace 
mantillas, enormous fans, and dresses of bright pink or blue, coquetted 
with theatrical-looking men in w^ide sombreros and cloaks. Beggar- 
children ran in and out, laughing shrilly, and stopping in the midst of 
a caper to snuffle, — " Senorita, yo no teiigo -padre^ — and beg for 
the eighth part of a cent for the love of the mother of God. 

It was their good-bye to Spain, but not to each other, for Lord 
Gubbins had decided to make the tour of Portugal, embarking at 
Oporto, for England, and they were likely to see a good deal of 



LISBON AND CINTRA. 



183 



one another, though Mrs. Arnold had decided it would not be 
proper for them to travel in company. The long railway journey 
across the frontier was fatiguing, and gave them little of interest to 
repa}^ its wearisomeness. 

They spent their first day in Lisbon, quietly resting. Their first 




FISH BOY OF LISBON. 

sight-seeing was in the direction of mementoes of the great earth- 
quake. The Museo del Carmen they found to be a most picturesque 
ruin, broken arches gave a full view of the sky, while vines entwined 
the pillars of the once noble church. The part of the building which 
still retains a roof is used as the Museum of the Archaeological 
Society. This church, is perhaps, the only building in Lisbon which 



1 84 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



remains exactly in the same condition in which it was left by the 
earthquake of 1755. 

One of the first spectacles which impressed the girls as character- 
istic of the city, was the fish market. Here were picturesque women 
filling their great trays from the basket of the fishermen, lifting them 
lightly to their heads, and setting out on a trot on their rounds 
through the city. There Avere boys, too, with purse-shaped caps, in 
whose capacious interior they stowed their earnings, their luncheon, 
and it would seem, all their extra wardrobe; and women, fishermen, 
and boys were all screaming together as harshly and noisily as crows 
in a corn-field. 

Saint was especially interested in looking up data concerning the 
Inquisition. " Father could make a good sermon out of it," she 
explained; "^ or at least a Saturday evening lecture." At the library 
of National Archives she asked to be shown some of the records 
of this court of injustice, and w^hen they were laid before her was 
disappointed to find that they were written in an antiquated, legal black 
letter, which, novice as she was, even in modern Portuguese, was 
quite beyond her power of deciphering. A young student seeing her 
perplexity, volunteered, with stately deference, to assist her by reading 
the "processos " aloud in French. Seeing that Saint took note of 
what he said, in English, he remarked, a shade of a smile sweeping 
his face, — '"^ Here at least is something droll. It is written here 
in ancient Portuguese, I read it in French, and you write it again in 
English. Three languages are speaking at the same time, and there 
is no confusion of tongues." 

Facing the Place Dom Pedro, one of the principal squares of the 
city, stands a handsome building, the Royal Theatre. It was built, 
they learned, upon the foundations of the ruined Palace of the Inqui- 
sition, and strange to say, the last person condemned here and burned 
at the stake in the square without, was executed, not as a heretic, but 
as a writer of merry vaudevilles, just such comedies as are now acted 



LISBON AND CINTRA. 



185 



on the spot where he received his death sentence. Surely, even 
in laz}^, sleepy Portugal, the world moves. 

Heretics and scientists were tortured alike, for chemistry was 
considered a black art; but concentrated persecution fell upon the 
Jews, many of w^hom fled to the Land of the Moor, finding among the 
fanatic followers of the Prophet Camel-Driver more of toleration 
than among Christians, falsel}^ so called. 

The girls next visited the Art Gallery at Lisbon, which is made 
up largely of altar-pieces, etc., from despoiled convents. A most 
horrible collection it is. The day of doom and retribution was the 
most common subject, hairy, asinine devils, the central figures, and 
flames the background. Little else might have been expected when 
we reflect that the early artists had the auto-da-fes of the Inquisition 
before their eyes, and might at almost any time have brought their 
easels and camp-stools to the principal square of Lisbon and found 
there the actual flames of the pit. 

One afternoon they rode out to Belem, a suburb of Lisbon, whose 
principal object of interest is the church and monastery of Sao 
Jeronymo. The church contains the tombs of Vasco da Gama, the 
discoverer of the passage to India by way of the Cape of Good 
Hope, Camoens the Portuguese Dante, and of Prince Sebastian the 
Regretted, who is thought to have been killed in Africa in a useless 
crusade against the Moors. Many of the Portuguese refused to be 
convinced of his death or to believe that the remains brought home 
were those of their idolized prince. 

As the girls wandered in the beautiful cloister garden where the 
exuberant architecture of the later Gothic period seemed to be striv- 
ing to eclipse the exquisite forms of the hot-house garden which it 
enshrined, they met Lord Gubbins and Mr. Featherstonhaugh coming 
out of the refectory, and together completed the tour of the monastery. 
At its close a guide offered to take them to the Tower of Belem, 
built near the mouth of the river as a fortress to protect Lisbon from 



1 86 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



the Incursions of pirates. They all peered curiously into the dark 
oubliette into which prisoners were formerly lowered by cords, but 
only Barbara, Saint and Mr. Featherstonhaugh cared to climb to the 
windy top of the tower where were the great shields of the Order of 
Christ which showed from the ground only as a narrow bead of orna- 
ment. As soon as they gained one of the corner turrets and Barbara 

saw the water lapping the foot of 
the tower at such a dizzy distance 
below, her brain reeled, the strong 
wind seemed to beat her breath 
away, and she, clinging to the wall, 
groped her way down the winding 
staircase. Saint and Mr. Feather- 
stonhaugh remained on the roof 
until the party below became quite 
impatient. When they came down 
Saint looked grave and distraught 
and was even more silent than 
usual. 

The next day the young gentleman who had assisted Saint in her 
translation of the records of the Inquisition, whose name it appeared 
was Jesuino de Souza y Silva, called upon them (with his mother) at 
their hotel, bringing an invitation for them to attend the graduating 
exercises of his sister's class at the Convent of Bom Successo. He 
explained politely that he saw that the young ladies were liberally 
educated and he thought they might be interested in seeing how Por- 
tuguese young ladies were taught. The girls accepted with great 
delight. 

"Just fancy," exclaimed Maud, "we are going to visit the Vassar 
College of Portugal." 

The main boast of the institution, Madame Silva explained, was 
the proficiency of its pupils in music and modern languages. At the 




LORD GUBBINS. 



LISBON AND CINTRA. igy 

appointed hour she called for them and they drove out again to Be- 
lem, where the convent was situated. They caught a glimpse of her 
son on a fine horse, and noticed him again after their admittance by 
the portress in the principal hall of the convent. Fie made no effort 
however to join them, and his call on the day before was a great con- 
cession to foreign customs, as in Portugal young gentlemen never call 
upon j^oung ladies or accompany them to places of amusement 
unless formally betrothed. The girls noticed that the raised platform 
upon which the exhibition took place was separated from them by a 
double iron grating extending from floor to ceiling; so that they 
looked at the young ladies as upon rare birds enclosed in an aviary. 
The two gratings were so far apart that hands could just be clasped 
by persons reaching from either side. Had it been a menagerie, no 
prohibition in regard to annoying the animals with canes or umbrellas 
would have been necessary. The hall was decorated with specimens 
of needlework executed by the pupils, and by a portrait of the Pope. 
The papal nuncio, a venerable man in a purple silk gown, with a 
tiny skull-cap of corresponding color and material, just covering his 
tonsure, occupied an armchair directly in front of the grating. The 
young ladies, all of whom, with but two or three exceptions, were 
brunettes with rich complexions, were most unbecomingly dressed in a 
uniform of white, with facings of delicate blue. They entered the 
stage from the back and carried out the entire programme without 
announcement of exercises or any visible assistance from their in- 
structors, none of whom appeared before the audience. 

Various pieces of music were executed with average excellence, 
interspersed with recitations m different languages. Tennyson's Brook 
was the English selection. It was very amusing to hear the familiar 
words with the unfamiliar accent. 

" I cJiarter, charter as I go 

To join the breeming reever, 
For men may cojub and men may go, 
But I go on for eeffer." 



jgg THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

The crowning glory of the programme was a "Geographical Con- 
versation " in which all the pupils took part. This was carried on in 
five languages. A map of Europe hung upon an easel, and each 
young lady in turn would make a few remarks upon some country. 

England was treated in English, the surve}^ of Britain's greatness 
ending with the somewhat familiar quotation "Britannia rules the 
waves." A very small child came to the front and descanted on Pal- 
estine, to the great amusement of the audience, who considered her 
imperfect pronunciation of such hard names as Gethsemane and Gol- 
gotha as a great joke. Even the papal nuncio tittered, and the great 
armchair shook in s3-mpathy with his mirth. His delight w^as su- 
preme when Candida de Silva y Souza, the sister of their acquaintance 
repeated a panegyric on Italy in tolerably good Italian and something 
in the following terms: 

"Rome is glorious as the cradle of the Christian religion; Padua 
is noted as the residence of St. Anthony, Sienna of St. Catharine, 
Assisi as being the birthplace of St. Francis, Milan as the bishopric 
of St. Ambrose, and Bologna the honored resting-place of the ashes 
of St. Dominick." 

"I had always supposed," whispered Maud, "that Italy derived a 
part of its glory from the Arts, and am surprised and mortified at the 
ignorance in which the defective system of Vassar education has left 
me." 

A girl of twelve next came to the front. "It is possible," whis- 
pered Madam Silva, "that you may have met this young lady in your 
own country as she is an American. Her name is Maria Francisca 
de Santo Thyrso de Parana." 

" I do not recollect any one of that name," mused Mrs. Arnold. 
"Is she from New York?" But as she spoke the young lady in 
question exhibited a map of Brazil, remarking that this was her 
country, and this, with a few remarks on the exports of South Amer- 
ica, served as a treatise on the western continent. 



LISBON AND CINTRA. 



189 



After the exercise in geography, a little girl in total eclipse behind 
a stupendous bouquet, addressed the nuncio, thanking his excellency 
for honoring the occasion with his presence, and beseeching his 
paternal blessing. The bouquet was handed to "Excelenzia " through 
the gates in the iron grating; the scholars sank upon their knees, 
their eyes closed demurely, and their hands clasped in devout 
attitudes. The pope's representative rose, (as did the audience,) 
and lifting two fingers, made the sign of the cross in the air, and 
the exercises closed with a grand choral hymn, in honor of his holi- 
ness the pope. 

The ,names of these young ladies would alone have vouched 
for the devotion of their parents. That of Maria was most common, 
connected with ditferent attributes of the Virgin, as Maria das Dores, 
(Mary of Sorrows,) Maria da Graca, Maria da Gloria, Maria Assump- 
cao, (pronounced Assumpcion,) Maria da Encarnacao, and such com- 
pounds as these, with the addition of a sonorous family name, was 
not thought sufficient, and the programme was loaded with such 
combinations as: — 

Donna Maria das Dores Ignes Sousa Menezes; Donna Candida 
Stephanie Haydee Henriques dos Reis; Donna Adelia Leonilla 
Felicidade Santos e Silva; Donna Narcissa Eulalia Maria Annun- 
ciacao (Annunciation) Soares Vianna. 

It is indeed a puzzle as to how these young ladies will be called 
when, in the natural course of events, they wed with young gentle- 
men bearing names like the following, which appear in a genuine 
college catalogue: — 

Joao Baptista de Araujo Mirandello; Jose Ildefonso Placido 
Sebastiao do Pinto; and Manoel Nep'omuceno Francisco Xavier 
Guimaraes, do Santissimo Sacramento, de Rio Janeiro, Brazil. 

Madame Silva told them that they must be sure to visit Coimbra, 
the university town of Portugal, where her son was pursuing his 
collegiate studies, his presence in Lisbon at this time having been 
requested, in order that he might attend his sister's graduation. 



jQQ THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

Shortly after the exercises at the convent, Mrs. Arnold and the 
o-irls left Lisbon for Cintra, a place world-renowned for its natural 
beauties, and the favorite resort of the nobility and the wealthy. As 
the girls climbed the mountain-road which led to the Castle of Penha, 
the little town seemed to sink away from under them, and the noisy 
music of a band playing below was softened by the distance to a 
delicious murmur. The air was clear and exhilarating, and the castle 
on its eyrie of rocks seemed a picture rather than reality. It had 
a romantic, chivalric, and altogether unpractical air, utterly at 
variance with our work-a~day age. It could not by any stretch of the 
imagination, have been taken for a factory, an asylum, a railroad depot, or 
any other utilitarian building; it was purely and unmistakably a 
medieval castle, and the whole landscape appeared, as Maud said, 
composed to suit it, and to illustrate one of Sir Walter Scott's ballads, 
or a goblin story of the Rhine. The castle is occupied by Dom Fer- 
nando, the father of the present king of Portugal; he was never 
the reigning sovereign, but simply king consort, occupying a position 
analog-ous to that of his cousin, the lamented Prince Albert, the 
husband of Victoria. A German Prince, he married the Queen of 
Portugal and kept himself very wisely out of all govermental matters. 
After the death of the queen he retired to Penha Castle, and has 
married an American singer of some note. 

" I have heard her sing in Boston," said Saint; " does it not seem 
odd to see her here, the wife of an ex-king?" 

" Shall you call on her? " Barbara asked. 

" Certainly not, I never knew her in America, and if I had I 
should not dare presume now. It is very good of her husband to let 
strangers wander about their grounds as though they were a public 
park." 

"Shall you go to the chapel. Saint? I believe that is open to 
visitors." 

" I think not, Maud. I am a little tired and think I will wait here 
in the garden until you return." 



LISBON AND CINTRA. 103 

"You and Mrs. Arnold go and do the chapel," Barbara proposed, 
" while I wait here with Saint." 

As soon as Maud and her sister were out of sight, Barbara asked, 
a little anxiously, "Are you feeling quite well. Saint, dear? you have 
not looked yourself for a day or two." 

" I don't know why," Saint replied, eagerly. " I am very well." 

" A little tired perhaps. I fear we may not be wise in attempting 
to see so much. Lord Gubbins goes straight to Oporto, while we are 
to make at least two stops on the way. Do you imagine that we 
shall meet with them again?" 

" Yes, indeed. Mr. Featherstonhaugh thought it very improbable 
that the}'' would immediately find passage for England, and Lord 
Gubbins desires to spend a few days in the vicinity of Oporto. He 
means to go up the river to the vineyards, to purchase a quantity of 
port, it is a favorite wine with the English. I believe he would 
rather secure a few hampers of the choicer varieties than to visit the 
most wonderful place in Europe." 

" Mr. Featherstonhaugh does not seem as anxious to return to 
England as he was when we first met him. Maud and I thought 
then, that there was some Annie Laurie over there in whom he was 
particularly interested, but quite likely we were mistaken." 

"No, you were quite right." 

"Did he tell you so?" 

" Yes, when we were alone on the roof of the Tower of Belem. 
He said he was deeply attached to some one to whom he had not yet 
proposed, and that he meant before long to ^ put it to the test, and win 
or lose it all.' " 

" Did he tell you her name ? " 

"No, why should he? But he asked my advice, whether he 
ought to mention the matter to her, when there must still be a 
number of years before he could ask her to be his wife." 

" What did you tell him?" 



194 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



" I advised him to have everything understood between them, for 
if she cared for him it was better that she should be sure of his 
affection. I told him it was not waiting but uncertainty which breaks 
women's hearts." 

"Then what did he say?" 

" He said he should most certainly act upon my advice, and I re- 
member, too, that he promised that he would tell me the lady's name 

when we reached Oporto. Just before 
we parted he said I should know how 
presuming he had been, and how much 
above him was the being upon whom 
he had fixed his affections. I don't 
know why he wishes to tell me her 
name. Possibly it is because he is 
proud of her rank. I imagine that she 
must be noble." 

"Of course she is noble. Why, 
Saint, his secret is as easily seen through 
as those eye-glasses on your nose. I'll 
tell you who the lady is." 
"Who?" 

"On second thoughts I don't believe I will tell you. He evi- 
dently wants the fun of doing it himself, and I'll not be a mar-plot." 

"Barbara Atchison, if you imagine," — began Saint, the rich crim- 
son surging to her pure brow. 

"No, no; I don't imagine anything. Now don't be foolish and 
imagine things yourself. Time enough when we reach Oporto." 

They spent several days in charming Cintra, interested quite as 
much in the peasants as in the scenery and historical associations of the 
place. Here were droll little donke3^-boys tempting one to excursions 
to Beckford's palace or to the Cork Convent, ready to trudge content- 
edly behind and encourage their animals with persuasive prods of a 




DONKEY BOY AT CINTRA. 



|mii'|«'''li'ii|i|ii!iiilii' 'li'i 




liiillM^^^^^ 



LISBON AND CINTRA. 



197 



sharp stick or by twitching their tassel-like tails. Cintra was a beau- 
tiful garden with geraniums set out in long lines along the public road, 
hydrangeas drooping heavy pink and white balls over the wayside 
walls, while superb velvety hollyhocks made hedges of rich and 
delicate color. Twisted cork trees, overgrown with silvery moss and 
an abundance of ivy and other vines twining the stone-pines and pop- 
lars, shade every lane and avenue. There was 
only one drawback, the beggars. They sprang up 
in every lovely spot, stretched beseeching hands, 
clamored and hobbled after them persistently. 
It is generally supposed that beggars are invented 
for the benefit of the travelling public, but the 
girls noticed that the Portuguese gave far more 
liberally than the generality of foreign tourists. 
One poor woman, with a number of children, 
opened her purse, which contained nothing but 
copper coins, to share it with a blind fiddler. 

The monastery of Mafra, the Portuguese Es- 
corial, faces the seashore at a distance of about ^^^^ 
fourteen miles from Cintra. Here the girls heard ■'^^ 
the most wonderful chimes to which they had ever ^ ^' 

listened, and wandered through mouldering libraries and scriptoriums. 
The great kitchen with its open fireplace before which whole lambs 
had turned upon the spit, and its capacious ovens that rivalled in size 
the cells of the monks; the refectory with its carved lectern where 
some fasting monk droned the works of the church fathers while his 
brethren feasted, all reminded them of Longfellow's Golden Legend, 
and they could easily have fancied themselves in the Convent of St. 
Gildas de Rhuys. 

Once more upon the rail they turned their faces toward the north 
of Portugal. They paused only on the way to visit the Convent of 
Batalha and the University of Coimbra. 




198 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



"Girls!" exclaimed Barbara, one fine morning as she looked from 
the car window, "there is the Serra Convent and the suspension 
bridge. We are approaching Oporto." 

From the car windows they could see the Douro lined with ship- 
ping. Steaming majestically down the river was a steamship which 
bore the double crosses of St. George and St. Andrew. 




PEASANT WOMAN AND DONKEY. 



^'^ Bound for England," said Barbara carelessly, and then she added 
as an after thought, " I wonder at what hotel Lord Gubbins has taken 
rooms? " 

"It makes little difference," replied Maud» "No matter how 
hard we try to avoid him, we are bound to run against him sooner or 
later." 



THE NORTH OF PORTUGAL. 



199 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE NORTH OF PORTUGAL. 

MAUD was wrong, ^one of the party ever met Lord Gubbins 
again. The dipping of the British ensign at the stern of the 
steamship as the girls passed over the suspension bridge might almost 
have been'intended for a parting salute, for Lord Gubbins and Mr. Feath- 
erstonhaugh were on board en route for England. The latter gentle- 
man could not have imagined a few weeks before that, when the time 
came for him to embark for his native land, he would be loth to go. Bar- 
bara had shrewdly guessed he had something of importance to confide 
to Saint, and that something did not relate to any one in England. 
However, the opportunity had slipped through his fingers, and Bar- 
bara and Saint looked blankly at one another when the hotel clerk in- 
formed them that he was pleased to be able to put at their service the 
best rooms in the house, only vacated that morning by an English 
milord who had just sailed for home. 

As the two girls entered the smaller of the rooms, Barbara re- 
marked crossly: 

'^ What makes you look so smiling. Saint .^ One would think a 
load of anxiety had just been lifted from your mind." 

" I feel so. I have been very unhappy ever since you hinted that 
perhaps — " 

" No perhaps about it. I know to a certainty that Mr. Feather- 
stonhaugh meant you, when he told you about that mysterious some- 
body in whom he was interested. I only wish for my part that he 
had explained himself more definitely. I can't think what possessed 
the man to use such ambiguous terms. Why didn't he speak up with 



200 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

some sort of manliness? ^ Saint Boylston, I love you. Will you 
marr}^ me ? ' " 

" I am very thankful for my part that he did nothing of the kind, 
and that there is no chance of his ever making such a startling dec- 
laration and proposal." 

" I don't know about that." 

" What do you mean ? " 

" If his love is w^orth anything, oceans could not keep him from 
3'ou. Besides, a trip to America is a very little thing to a man who 
has been out to India and back," 

" Barb, you are craz}^ He is too poor to run off on any such 
fool's errand." 

"At all events he is not too poor to buy a postage stamp. He can 
at least write you. And you will see that he will." 

"He does not know my address." 

Barbara whistled and was silent for a moment. 

" Did you never speak of home to him, of Boston, or your father? " 

" I think not." 

Barbara's face fell; a moment later it brightened. "I have a 
conviction that amounts to a sense of certainty that you will hear 
from him again, nevertheless." And once again Barbara was 
right. 

Their first day in Oporto was spent upon the river. Mrs. Arnold 
engaged a boatman to row them up and down, and Maud filled 
another leaf in her sketch-book with bizarre water-side charac- 
ters. 

They were never tired of exploring the steep and crooked streets, 
of finding themselves unexpectedly in a church or market or a public 
square, as the case might be. Everyone seemed more active and 
pushing than in indolent Lisbon. Even the beggars made a business 
of their profession and appeared to find it a profitable one. 



THE NORTH OF PORTUGAL. 



203 



"Only look!" cried Barbara, as a strange equipage approached 
them. " I have often heard the old rhyme, — 

' If wishes were horses, 
Beggars might ride,' 

but here comes a living exemplification of it." 

It was indeed a lame beggar driving about in a queer little donkey 
cart, bav^^ling ballads and accompanying himself on a discordant gui- 




A LEAF FROM MAUD S SKETCH-BOOK. 



tar. The hideous little troubadour seemed in high favor and the girls 
saw him receive a quantity of money from the foot passengers. 

The market square was bordered with the ox-carts of the peasants 
which brought their farm produce from the interior. They were 
heavy, clumsily-contrived concerns whose axles gave out ear-piercing 
shrieks as they rolled along. The peasants never oil them; they 
fancy that the shrill noise drives away the mountain wolves, and cer- 
tainly, if heard in wild, solitary places this agonized cry might strike 
terror even to a human heart. 

Our party had decided to travel a little way into the mountain 



204 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



region to attend a Romaria or pilgrimage fair. One of these was to 
be held soon at Guimaraes, an historical old town north of Oporto 
where AfFonzo Henriques, the first king of Portugal, was born, and 
with memories going back further still to Wamba, king of the Goths. 
The castle dates back to the age of fable and is now only a noble ruin. 
The inn faced a square, all confusion now with the arrivals of the 
peasants in their toldas or ox-carts. The house was full, but at the 

sight of Mrs. Arnold's well 
filled purse the inn-keeper's 
wife surrendered her own room 
with, its two beds, and floor as 
white as sand and stout arms 
could make it. The daughter 
of the house, pretty Candida, in 
her bright festal costume, — con- 
sisting of a dark green many- 
pleated petticoat, a black jacket 
embroidered in gold, broad 
white sleeves, and scarlet bodice, with a profusion of gold chains and 
filagree ornaments, — was a most picturesque figure. 

She seemed fascinated by the three girls so near her own age and 
so different in appearance. Barbaira, who had picked up a little Por- 
tuguese, greatly enjoyed chatting with her, and Candida made the 
effort easier by showing considerable knowledge of English which she 
had picked up in Oporto. Maud found her equally interesting and 
was wild to transfer her in all her glory to canvas. 

"Would it not be delightful," Barbara suggested, "to carry home 
a complete suit of this brilliant costume! .1 mean to see if she 
will change for any of my finery." 

Candida was delighted with the idea, and produced from her well 
filled chests two complete suits; one in dark blue embroidered with 
yellow, and the other of scarlet and black. She carried away in ex- 




' BEGGARS MIGHT RIDE. 



THE NORTH OF PORTUGAL. 



205 



change an old silk of Barbara's which was growing rusty, and a ball 
dress in which she had danced last in Denver. She gazed at Maud's 
Japanese umbrella with such unspeakable admiration, that Maud 
added it also to her trophies. 

The girls amused themselves by dressing up in their newly ac- 
quired property, Candida obligingly plaiting their hair and arranging 
gay handkerchiefs on their heads in the manner of the countr3^ She 
wished also to add a gift of jewelry, but this the girls would not al- 
low. 




ox CART. 



"We can easily buy ourselves some chains at the fair," said Maud, 
and then simultaneously to each of the girls the idea occurred that it 
would be great sport to attend the fete in peasant costume. If only 
Mrs. Arnold would consent. Besieged on all hands she finally 
agreed, Candida promising to walk with and take care of them, 
and the girls promising not to get out of sight of Mrs. Arnold and 
Saint. 

It was to be a grand occasion — muchas flambeaux, Candida said, 
and fireworks displayed from the castle tower at night, with bands 
from Oporto and dancing in the public square, and on the morrow a 
penitential procession and high mass at the church. 

An animated and almost bewildering scene was presented to 



2q5 three vassar girls abroad. 

Maud and Barbara, as, unrecognizably disguised, they stole out of the 
inn door on the evening of the fete. The square had been turned 
into a bazaar, where every imaginable commodity w^as being bought 
and sold. Beyond the town, stretching up to the foot of the castle, 
was the encampment, ox carts in long lines changed to bedsteads, and 
flaring circles of camp fires where the peasants were preparing their 
olhas or national ragout. Bevies of laughing girls, dressed as they 
were, strolled about with intertwined arms, singing and chatting 
noisily to one another. Indeed, every one seemed determined to make 
as much noise as possible. Men shouted, boys halloed, children 
screamed, old women gabbled shrilly, intinerant venders called their 
wares, bands brayed, troubadours howled, and the donkeys, mules and 
oxen added their voices to the tumult. Candida led them deftly 
throusrh to the groldsmith's booth and Maud invested in a chain of 
curious links, with a heart-shaped filagree pendant as large as her 
two hands, while Barbara purchased a pair of delicately wrought gold 
ear-rings, nearly as large as waffle irons, but of such marvellous thin- 
ness as to be neither very heavy nor expensive. As they turned from 
the booth a shabby ecclesiastic presented them with a silver dish filled 
with olive leaves. 

"You must buy one of these to slip in your bosom as a talisman," 
whispered Candida. " They are from Wamba's olive tree in the en- 
closure in front of the church." 

" Why then can we not pick as many as we choose without paying 
for them ? " Maud inquired. 

"No indeed," replied the girl; "during the romaria, the olive-tree 
is sacred, none can pick a leaf but the priest, and these have lain 
all night on the altar of Nossa Senhora da Oliveira. They are 
blessed leaves and will bring peace to your souls." 

Barbara handed the beadle a coin, and slipped one of the leaves 
within her bodice, but Maud tossed her head scornfully, saying 
she would have nothing to do with such nonsense. " Why do they 
call it Wamba's olive-tree?" she condescended to ask. 



THE NORTH OF PORTUGAL. 209 

"Have you never heard?" queried Candida, in wide-eyed sur- 
prise. "Many centuries ago, in the time of the Moors, maybe," — 

"In the time of the Goths," Barbara interrupted. 

" In the time of whom you will, Wamba was ploughing with 
a yoke of oxen where now our church stands. They were lazy 
beasts, and he urged them forward with a goad. Some of the elders 
of the land came to him and besought him to be their king. Wamba 
was so surprised and displeased, that he thrust his goad into the 
ground, and said that he would never consent until it took root and 
blossomed. Then Our Lady wrought a miracle, for the dead wood 
put out branches and lea^^es, blossomed with the flowers of Paradise, 
and showered the ground with bushels of olives. Then Wamba, 
seeing that it was the will of Heaven as well as of the people, left his 
oxen and became king:. The olive-tree still stands within the railins; 
before the church." 

" How long ago was this?" asked Maud, incredulously. 

" Surely I know not, but it was before the corner-stone was laid 
for our castle, and at the time when the blessed apostle, St. James, 
was fighting the infidel in Spain." 

" Somewhere in the first century. Humph, your olive-tree looks 
remarkably green and young, considering its great age." 

" Surely, why should it not? It is a miraculous plant." 

A shout from the multitude announced that the display of fire- 
works from the castle-walls had begun. The parapet was outlined 
with alternate red and green lanterns, and bouquets of rockets were 
discharged from the tower. A set-piece, of religious character, was 
displaj^ed, in which angelic forms fluttered to the earth or soared 
triumphantly into the starlit heavens, surrounding a central eflSgy, 
representing the assumption of the Virgin. A glory of darting flame 
quivered about the head of the virgin, which paused for a moment, 
her feet restinof on a crimson g-lobe that floated above the castle- 
tower, and then the strings which held the balloon, (for such it really 



2IO 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



was,) being loosened, the Virgin soared majestically skyward, and 
was lost from view. 

The peasants screamed with delight. To the more devout and 
credulous it was something supernatural, and there were not wanting 
those who declared that the virgin herself had appeared to her 
favored people. 

The greater part of the night was spent in hilarity and dancing. 




THE CASTLE OF GUIMARAES. 



As they returned from the fireworks to the inn, they encountered 
a part}^ of boys, who had spent the afternoon in a rough game of polo on 
their shaggy ponies, but who were not too tired for further sport. 
They insisted that the girls should accompany them to the dancing- 
pavilion. 

"What is the matter with her?" one of them, — who considered 
himself quite irresistible, in his gala jacket, with its rows of silver 
clasps, — asked, as he twisted his thumb in the direction of the indig- 



THE NORTH OF PORTUGAL. 211 

nant Maud. " What is the reason that she will neither dance with 
me, nor speak to me ? " 

" She is dumb," replied Candida, who could think of no better 
excuse." 

"But that will not hinder her dancing," persisted the youth. 

"She is a cripple," explained Candida; "she sprained her ankle 
the other day." 

" She walks remarkably fast for that," grumbled the boy. "And 
who is her companion, who walks so straight, and spoke to you a 
moment ago in such a strange outlandish gibberish?" 

"She is from Vigo," replied Candida; "they are half Spanish 
there. Their patois is different from ours." 

"Prithee, pretty maidens, whither away so fast?" said an English 
voice, just as Barbara and Maud had nearly reached the hotel. Bar- 
bara turned around in sheer surprise at hearing a language which she 
supposed no one in this region but themselves understood. The 
speaker was an English tourist, with a straw hat bound with an 
unmanly white veil. He had not, as she at first thought, penetrated 
her disguise, but took her for one of the peasant-girls. Mrs. Arnold and 
Saint appearing in sight, the stranger turned, to gaze in astonishment 
in his turn, at familiar costumes, and to listen to words spoken in his 
own language. The girls, safely in their own room, laid aside their 
peasant-dresses, declaring that the}^ had had quite enough of a lark for 
that time. 

The next day, the religious ceremonies proper, took place. A 
solemn Sabbath-like stillness reigned In the town, broken only by the 
fitful tolling of bells. Barbara rose early and attended mass with 
Saint, and after its close, stepped aside near the fountain, to witness 
the forming of the procession. A few church officials' headed it, 
bearing the host in a silver pyx, while altar-boys in soiled lace fol- 
lowed with a violet velvet banner. Then came the peasants; old men 
with long, slant tapers; young girls with garlands and bouquets; matrons 



212 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

with Mater Dolorosa faces, bending over prayer-books with murmur- 
ing lips: young men walking respectfully, hat in hand. A priest 
followed, bearing a reliquary. " My daughters," he said to the girls, 
seeing that they stood aloof; "this pilgrimage is meant not alone 
for the poor and humble, but for the privileged as well. We are 
all pilgrims, and the rich have often as thorny a path to tread as 
the peasant. When God points out the way refuse not to walk 
in it." 

The girls were dressed plainly in black. The priest evidently 
thought them well-to-do Portuguese from Oporto. Something in 
Barbara's heart responded to the priest's words, " I have looked so 
long for my path in life," she thought, " and have hoped that it might 
be shown me on this tour. It has not come, and the journey is almost 
over. What if in refusing this benevolent old man's invitation I put 
away my last chance of finding my path?" 

A vender of relics from the Holy Land pressed toward them and 
offered Saint a crucifix. 

" It is of olive wood, from Gethsemane," he said, "and only two 
tnilreisP 

"Do not refuse the cross," said the priest gravely, and Saint 
handed the peddler the sum he asked. The procession moved on. 

" Let us follow them," said Barbara; "I would like to see all the 
ceremonies." 

She was in no way inclined to Romanism. What she had seen 
of the abuses and superstitions of the Catholic church in Spain had 
shocked and disgusted her. Barbara's faith, if she ever possessed 
one, must be very simple, devoid of all formalism, but it would be an 
earnest and living one. She was too sagacious to be deluded, but if 
the priest had a message of truth to communicate, she was broad 
■enough to accept it and wise enough to winnow the wheat from the 
chaff. Even now her quick judgment was on the alert, suspicious of 
fraud, but her heart was in a susceptible mood. Some spiritual 



THE NORTH OF PORTUGAL. 



213 



influence beyond her own inclination seemed to draw her on. They 
followed to a spot where a temporary via cruets had been con- 
structed, with fifteen stations or wayside altars, before each of which 
the pilgrims paused and offered- prayer. The last shrine was placed 
on a roomy esplanade provided with rough benches facing a pulpit 
which the priest, who had spoken to them, ascended, and, when all 
had taken seats beijan a sermon. Much of it Barbara could not un- 
derstand, but she felt the magnetism of the listening, earnest people. 
She saw that the prerfcher was eloquent, for his audience wept 
frequentl}', and now and then she understood a distinctly uttered 
phrase, or even comprehended the drift of an entire sentence. 

While others sobbed their repentance or sorrow, care or pain, Bar- 
bara murmured only 

" O, that tlie mist which veileth my To come 
Would so dissolve and yield unto my eyes 
A worthy path ! I'd count not wearisome 
Long toil, nor enterprise." 

"Maud goes back," she thought, "confirmed in her art work, asking 
no other. To Saint, though she has her music, there is coming some 
time I am sure the greatest joy which can come into any woman's 
life — the love of a truly noble soul. But I have nothing; an aimless 
life is hardly w^orth the living." 

The priest repeated his text — "Sir, we would see Jesus!" Of 
what followed she only understood broken sentences, somewhat in 
this wise: "You have all paths to choose — the path of sin, the path 
of pleasure, of earthl}' wisdom, of honor and the delight of the world. 
But one path leads to Jesus, the path of renunciation and self-denial. 
You would see Jesus? He is walking to and fro among you. His 
hand is laid upon yours; he would lead you to himself. In every act 
of self-sacrifice, of unselfish love that is done in the world, in every 
faithful performance of duty we find the heavenly walk. 



214 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



"You would see Jesus? Then you need not Inquire the way, 
your feet are ah'eady in it. Press on, moulding your life after His; 
walking in his footsteps; and all the way you shall hear the flutter of 
his garment going on before. You shall walk in his shadow, which 




GATEWAY. 



is perfect light, and at the end — which is but the beginning, then for 
ever — 3^ou shall see — Jesus." 

Was it the miraculous work of the crisped olive leaf which lay 
over Barbara's heart or of an influence more truly divine? A glamour 
as of a holy radiance seemed shed upon castle and hillside upon the 



THE NORTH OF PORTUGAL. 



215 



quaint town, and an ancient gateway through which the sunrise shone 
till it seemed to her like the gate of Heaven, upon the face of the 
almost inspired preacher and his kneeling people. This was what 
she had longed and yearned for so long, not knowing what she sought. 
She, too, would see Jesus. Her feet were in the path and all its on- 
ward way was marked by him. She kneit as in a trance and the 
peace of God entered her soul. 



2i6 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XV. 

A GLIMPSE AT AFRICA. 

ON their return to Oporto, Mrs. Arnold found a letter awaiting her 
from her husband. He stated that the United States frigate on 
which he was a lieutenant, was ordered to Gibraltar, and that if 
she could come immediately to that port he could meet her there. 
Fortunately an English steamer bound for Gibraltar had just put into 
Oporto, and Mrs. Arnold and the girls took passage at once. 

Arriving at the rock, which British engineering has changed into 
the most invulnerable fortress in the, world, Mrs. Arnold was 
delighted to see the stars and stripes hoisted in the harbor, and as 
the}^ were rowed to shore she recognized in the crowd of Jews, 
Moors, Spaniards, and English, who thronged the wharf, a well- 
known form in the uniform of the United States Navy. 

After the party had inspected the galleries in the Rock, had 
climbed to the old Moorish castle, and had enjoyed the cosmopolitan 
sights of the market, and review of the British soldiery, in their 
dazzling white helmets and brilliant scarlet uniforms; they met in 
the drawing-room of the Royal Hotel, for what the lieutenant called 
a council of war. 

"My ship will be detained here," he explained, "until we receive 
advices from America. The girls can not set out for America until 
the arrival of some chance steamer or one of the regular fruit-line 
from Malaga. None of these are expected until next week. Now 
the question arises, how shall we spend the intervening time? It 
seems to me that nothing could be more interesting than a trip across 
to Tangier. I can easily obtain leave of absence for a coupie of 



A GLIMPSE AT AFRICA. 



219 



days, and if the place is anything like Algiers it is well worth 



visiting. 



Mrs. Arnold demurred. They were all '''Turks " over there, and 



she did not care to risk her life amontr them. 



i5^ 
















SKETCH IN GIBRALTAR. 



"Not Turks, Lily, but Moors," Lieutenant Arnold corrected. "It 
is a time of peace, and I am sure a little lady who has knocked about 
all sorts of harum scarum places in Spain and Portugal, ought not to 
be afraid, now that she has a representative of the United States Navy 
to protect her." 



2 20 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

Mrs. Arnold at length gave a grudging consent, and the party 
embarked on the tiny Jackal, for Africa. 

" This is a fitting ending for our tour," exclaimed Maud. " A bit 
of real Orient; bazaars, and mosques, harems and caravans. Oh, it is 
just — 

"Too quite too far more than most awfully delicious," suggested 
Saint. 

A near view of Tangier showed more of filth than of magnificence. 
Narrow alleys in place of streets, noisome smells, and fierce, wicked 
faces scowling at them from under turban and fez. And yet there 
was compensation for much inconvenience in the strange sights about 
them, — bazaars that reminded Maud of Fortuny's pictures, in their 
display of rich colors, tiled minarets and towers flashing back the sun- 
shine; palm-trees drooping over white walls, and stranger human 
types. There were light-complexioned Moors with haughty profiles, 
richly-clad. Jetty negroes, nearly naked, bearing baskets of tropical 
fruits; wild Bedouins from the desert, carrying long rifles, women 
shrouded in thebaic, which only permitted one eye to be seen; 
cringing, shabby Jews, and idiotic or lunatic sa?ztos. These last are 
regarded as sacred by the Moors, who believe that God has with- 
drawn their souls to Heaven. A santo crouched beside the door of 
the hotel as they entered, and spat viciously at Mrs. Arnold, who 
chanced to step upon his tatters. The lieutenant thoughtlessly 
threatened the man, bidding him be more civil. Whereupon the 
santo rose slowly and cursed him in Arabic. A son of the hotel- 
keeper, who chanced to be near, looked frightened. "You have done 
a very impolitic thing, my master," he said; "this santo is in great 
repute with the populace, and has almost unlimited influence over the 
Pasha of Tangier." 

"What did he say just now?" Mrs. Arnold asked. 

" He said that it was one thing for Christian dogs to come to a 
country where you were not desired, and another to get away from it 
safely." 



A GLIMPSE AT AFRICA. 



223 



"There, Edmund! "" exclaimed Mrs. Arnold; '^ did I not say that 
this was a dangerous place? The Jackal has not left yet, let us go on 
board immediately." 

" Nonsense," replied her husband, " the vagabond cannot hurt us, 
It would be absurd to come to Africa only to leave it in half an hour," 
and entering the hotel, he took 
rooms and ordered dinner. 
After dinner they took a walk 
to the Soc, or market-place 
without the walls. Here a 
caravan had just arrived from 
Timbuctoo, by the way of the 
desert, and the girls watched 
the unlading of the camels with 
much interest. They returned 
by wa}' of the bazaars, and 
the lieutenant purchased trin- 
kets for all; silver bangles for 
Barbara, a scarf, shot with 
gold thread, for Maud, and a 
small prayer-rug, of Tunisian 
manufacture, for Saint. A 
Moorish arch in the gay pat- 
tern, designated the end v/hich 
was always pointed toward Mecca, and the space within was worn 
nearly threadbare by the knees of the faithful. 

The}' peeped inside the door of a mosque, and visited the house 
formerly occupied as a studio by the French artist, Henri Regnault. 
Here they heard a French voice conversing with the Jewess who 
was doing laundr}' work in the beautifully arched court. Barbara 
grasped Maud's hand and the two girls turned and fled. The voice 
was unmistakably that of Armand Le Prince. 




A SAXTO. 



224 IHREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

"To think that we siiould find him here of all places in the 
■world! " said Barbara. 

"It is not so very strange," replied Saint; "we left him in Se- 
ville. It is quite natural that he should continue his tour south- 
w^ard." 

"He has not discovered us so far," remarked Maud; "let us hope 
that we may escape him." 

The next morning as the girls entered the breakfast-room they 
found Monsieur Le Prince in animated conversation with Lieutenant 
and Mrs. Arnold. 

"Come here, Maud," cried the latter, "and help us congratulate 
Monsieur Le Prince on his marriage." 

It was really true. Armand had married a Spanish lady and had 
left his bride in Gibraltar, while he visited Tangier to see if he could 
establish a bazaar of bonnets for Moorish ladies. They chatted very 
pleasantly during the meal and the girls confessed afterwards that 
Armand as a married man was far more interesting than as a bachelor. 
He had not met with success in disposing of his wares. The Moor- 
ish ladies rarely appear on the streets, and it was impossible for him 
to enter their houses to show them his tempting bonnets. Moorish 
husbands and fathers passed him by; they looked with no favor on 
Christian schemes of money-making. It was a vile country, and he 
had determined to quit it that very day. 

"I don't know but we have seen enough of it also," remarked the 
lieutenant, " unless you young ladies would like a trip per caravan 
across the Sahara." 

"Oh! do let us go, Edmund," pleaded Mrs. Arnold. "That hor- 
rible Santo is back at his post, and looked at me in such an evil way 
this morning that I am sure he means mischief." 

The lieutenant saw that his wife was really uneasy, and although 
regarding her fears as childish, he was quite willing to humor her. 
No one cared to remain longer but Maud, who was anxious to make 




DOOR OF MOSQUE OF BOU-MEDINA. 



A GLIMPSE AT AFRICA. 



227 



some studies in color. The inn-keeper was appealed to for informa- 
tion as to the departure of the boats. 

He shrugged his shoulders with an expressive wave of the hands. 
"When Allah wills." 

"What do you mean? Have they no regular times of coming and 
going?" 

"Certainly; without doubt the Jackal might be expected on the 
morrow, but it would not be permitted to land; the port was in quar- 
antine." 

"In quarantine! Is there fever in town?" 

" No, it was never more healthy. The authorities often announce 
the place in quarantine for months together, for reasons of their own 
which none can fathom." 

"But this is absurd; it is unendurable," rebelled the lieutenant. 
" I will see the pasha." 

" It will be useless. It is he who has issued the decree at the ad- 
vice of the Santo." 

"The Santo! I told you so. I told you so," moaned Mrs. Ar- 
nold. 

"And I am to be separated an indefinite eternity from my wife! " 
exclaimed Armand Le Prince. 

"Do see the American consul," suggested Maud. 

"The very thing," replied the lieutenant. "I always supposed 
that Decatur put an end to the capture of American citizens by Bar- 
bary corsairs. The thing is an insult to the flag; it is not to be borne. 
Moreover, I am liable to court-martial for overstaying my leave of 
absence." 

Even Maud had suddenly lost all desire to make an}^ sketches, 
and was as anxious to get away as any of the others. 

The lieutenant returned from a protracted tour of all the consul- 
ates, dispirited, weary and unsuccessful. No one could do an3'thing, 
and he was advised on every hand to wait patiently. The embargo 



228 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

would not probably last more than a week or two, and meantime he 
might make a trip to Tetuan or even Fez. 

^^ Could we not bribe some of the boatmen to take us across the 
Straits in one of those feluccas with the rakish latteen sails?" asked 
Mrs. Arnold. 

"I have thought of that," replied the lieutenant, "but the enter- 
prise would be a hazardous one, and if we failed in getting oft' or 
were overtaken we would probably be imprisoned. I do not like to 
risk it." 

" As well one danger as another," said Maud. " I am conftdent 
that annoyance is not all which the Santo has planned for us. He 
will, I fear, excite the populace against us and cause us to be mas- 
sacred." 

Saint shuddered, but Barbara replied cheerfully, for a conviction 
that they were all in God's hands made her brave: 

" I do not think they would dare do anything like that within sight 
of one of our own war-ships and in the presence of the foreign lega- 
tions. The delay is provoking, but Maud at least can profit by it. 
If Mrs. Arnold would feel safer perhaps we can prevail upon our 
consul to take us into his own household. I am positive the quaran- 
tine cannot last long; it puts the Moors themselves to too much 
inconvenience." 

Armand Le Prince who had been silent for a long time, smote 
upon his forehead. 

" I have an idea! " 



HOME AGAIN. 22Q 



CHAPTER XVI. 



HOME AGAIN. 



A RMAND'S idea was a good one, but it could never have been 
•^ ^ carried out without the co-operation of the girls. 

"European ladies," he said," are frequently allowed to call on the 
harem of the pasha, — where no man would be admitted. If you will 
call on these ladies, I think our liberation could be effected." 

" I am afraid they would care very little for our entreaties," 
replied Saint. 

"Nothing, doubtless. You shall not entreat; we will leave that to 
them." 

" What do 3'ou mean ? " 

"Sim.ply this, you shall each of 3'Ou carry a couple of bandboxes, 
they contain the most ravishing specimens of m}- talent, present these 
to the ladies. There will not be enough to go around, good! Tell 
them that more will be forwarded from Gibraltar as soon as the 
quarantine is raised. Ah! that old pasha, I pity him, he will have no 
peace. When the Jackal returns, we will all stand upon the deck." 

"The experiment is at least worth trying," remarked the lieuten- 
ant. " We will see whether Monsieur Le Prince has rightly estimated 
the caprices of the female mind." 

The lieutenant and Antonio, the son of the hotel-keeper, accom- 
panied Mrs. Arnold and the girls to the audience-room of the pasha, 
where the whole party salamed humbly, while Antonio interpreted 
the desire of the ladies to visit the pasha's harem. In order to 
impress the pasha with the dignit}^ of his guests, Antonio unscrupu- 
lously informed him that the lieutenant was the Pasha of New York, 



230 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

and that the girls were the daughters of General Washington. The 
pasha waved the gentlemen to seats upon the divan, and clapped his 
hands for a little Nubian to lead the ladies to the apartments of the 
women. " If Washington is the father of his country," said Maud, 
afterward, " T suppose that in a figurative sense, Antonio was right, 
and we really are daughters of Washington." 

The Nubian led them to a beautiful interior court where the 
pasha's ladies were assembled in gorgeous Moorish costumes. Their 
guide explained, as he had been told by Antonio, that the foreign 
ladies had brought them some presents, and Maud proceeded to open 
the bandboxes. "Where are yo^^x scruples now?" Barbara asked, 
mischievously, "about abolishing the national costume of a country?" 
How can you bear to substitute Parisian hats for those lovely spangled 
gauze veils?" 

Maud pretended not to hear her, and herself put on the marvellous 
bridal hat, which Armand had originally designed for her, in order to 
show the ladies the proper way to wear it. A wrinkled crone of 
some sixty winters, the pasha's senior wife, came forward and claimed 
the first gift as due to her pre-eminent position. Mrs. Arnold could 
not forbear a little grimace as the orange-blossoms were arranged 
above her frosty locks. The " chapeau ingenue," or of unconscious 
innocence, was fitted to the head of an uncommonly fat woman of forty. 

"She looks like a squaw," murmured Barbara. 

The coquettish flirtation hat was next jauntily pinned on the 
woolly chignon of a belle from the Soudan, and nothing remained 
but the widow's cap, " douleur extreme " for a really pretty girl of 
eighteen. Thekodalis, the pasha's favorite and latest wife, a lovely 
creature of sixteen, had nothing. A frown contracted her beautiful 
brows, and she retired to an alcove, pouting sulkily. Then the 
Nubian guide repeated what Antonio had told him. More bonnets 
would be sent when the quarantine was raised. More wives cam.e in 
from the garden and looked longingly at the presents, while the 



HOME AGAIN. 2 •2 1 

fortunate ladies hastened to regale their benefactors with tiny cups of 
tea, siropy sweet and flavored with verbena. 

"To think," laughed Saint, on their return to the hotel, "that after 
all that happened at Seville, Maud should really be on good terms 
with Armand Le Prince, and that I should see her actually assisting 
iiim in the disposal of the bonnets which she professed so greatly to 
detest." 

"Both Armand and the bonnets are very well in their place," 
replied Maud; "and that place seems to be the present emergency. 
If they save our lives now, I shall be willing to recognize Armand as 
the artist he claims to be." 

The next day, the longed for announcement was broughtto them that 
the embargo was at an end. The Pasha of New York was at liberty 
to leave with his harem, at his pleasure. The message was accom- 
panied by a gift of Moorish silken stuffs, which were forced upon the 
unwilling Armand, and the request that more bonnets might be sent 
to the Pasha of Tan<rier. 

"With those bonnets," said Saint, gail}^, "will surely come the 
desire of gadding abroad to show them. To us is due the first break- 
ing down of Moorish t3'ranny to women." 

At Gibraltar a steamer was found ready to sail for America. The 
girls were placed under the care of the captain's wife, and Lieutenant 
and Mrs. Arnold, and Armand Le Prince and his bride, accompanied 
them on board. Armand brous^ht three bandboxes containing 
triumphs of his art, which he begged the girls to accept, in testimony 
of his " respect profound, his gratitude sincere, and his friendship 
eternal." 

His pretty wife added her protestations of regard, and all waved 
their handkerchiefs enthusiastically from the wharf, as the girls started 
on their homeward voyage. 

The trip was as uneventful as most ocean transits. The most 
interesting personage on board, to the girls, was a Chinese bo}-, the 



232 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



servant of a gentleman who had resided a number of years in 
China. 

He always addressed the boy in pigeon English, a strange mon- 
grel patois that was often extremely amusing. He was bringing 
home a great many curios, — delicate sets of porcelain, exquisitely 




HOME AT LAST. 



embroidered silks, carved ivories, lacquer boxes and dragon vases 
As he approached New York he became quite nervous at the thought 
of the custom-house, and at the enormous duty which might be 
charged on these articles. It struck him at last that if they were 
passed through as the property of the young Chinaman, the officers 
might be more moderate in their estimate. He called his servant to 



HOME AGAIN. 27 2 

him and proceeded to place all the valuable articles in a single chest. 
Th's he locked, handing Kong the key with the injunction — 

"Kong! s'pose some man talkee, Svho that chest b'longee?' 
Say, ^that chest b'longee m}'!' Sabe?" 

Kong appeared to understand, but Barbara, v/ho had overheard 
the conversation, was much shocked. 

"That gentleman will regret the day he taught his servant to lie," 
she said to the other girls. 

This proved to be the case sooner than was expected, for as soon 
as the officers had finished their examination and had returned the 
key to Kong, he shouldered the chest, and from that moment neither 
it nor he were seen again. 

It was surmised that he had taken refuge in some of the Chinese 
laundries, but he evaded all pursuit. The gentleman's property was 
irrecoverably lost. Evidently he had understood, far too literally for 
his master's satisfaction, " that chest b'longee 7/^j." 

The girls received an enthusiastic v/elcome from their classmates 
at Vassar, who arranged a little spread in their honor, at which a song 
original I}' written to the Harvard annex w^as so sung as to apply to 
them — 

"These are the undergraduates 
Of 18S3, 
The prettiest undergraduates 
That ever you did see. 

In Spanish and in Calculus, 

And in Hindostanee, 
Their learning is quite fabulous, , 

As well as Portugee. 

The verb abstruse, amo, arnas. 

In Latin and Chinee, 
In every tongue each clever lass 
Can conjugate freclee. 

Music is represented by 

Its patroness, Saint C, 
In painting Maud will soon surpass 

Raphael or Da Vinci. 



2^4 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 

From every European State, 

From South Amerikee, 
From Popocatapetl, and 

From Asia and Fiji. 

These pretty modern Eves have come 

This Class of '83, 
To pluck the golden apples from 

The one forbidden tree." 

" You have not mentioned Barbara," said Saint. " Barb, what do 
you call yourself ? " 

"The great American appreciator," replied Barbara, laughing. 




One day Saint received a letter strangely addressed and much 
crossed and recrossed by the random suggestions of postmasters b}- 
whom it had been bandied about. The envelope was nearly worn 
out and presented an appearance something like the above. 



HOME AGAIN. 2^i; 

Opened, the letter was found to read as follows: — 

London, Sept. 5. 
My Dear Miss Boylston : 

To my great regret, our departure for England was precipitated by the un- 
expected- arrival at Oporto of just the steamer which his Lordship desired to 
take. So sudden was our leaving that I had not time to do more than to leave 
the hurried scrawl with our hotel clerk with instructions to find you if possible 
on your arrival, and deliver it to you. 

"But I never received ^anything," exclaimed Saint. 

" Certainly not," replied Maud. "Who ever heard of a hotel clerk 
putting himself out to serve any one, especially if he was paid before- 
hand?" 

That note very inadequately expressed my reluctance at leaving the country 
before having at least one more interview with you. Our only means of inter- 
course for the present is through the medium of correspondence ; and difficult 
as it is for me to express myself in this manner, I shall endeavor so to do, 
should this letter be so happy as to reach you, and you so kind as to deign a 
reply. 

I have much to say, and something of what I would have said I believe you 
have already guessed. I am sure, from the advice you gave me at Belem, that 
you recognized the portrait which I endeavored to sketch for you, and no one 
can be in a better position than yourself to give advice in the matter. If you 
still think my case a hopeful one, will you not drop me a line at the enclosed 
address, and I will remain ever, your obliged servant, 

Featherstonhaugh. 

"Now I call that unexampled impertinence," exclaimed Saint. 
^^ The idea of hig imagining that I advised him to persevere because I 
thought he meant me! It is simply insulting." 

"No, not so bad as that," replied Maud, critically; "he seems to 
me to be absurdly cautious, however. Do you notice that he does 
not commit himself even now? How shall you answer the letter?" 

" I shall not answer it at all. He can imagine, if he chooses, that 
it never reached me." 



236 



THREE VASSAR GIRLS ABROAD. 



" Now, Saint," pleaded Barbara, " that is really too bad. Father 
writes that if I maintain a good position in my class this yfear he will 
take me to England himself next summer. He intends to apply for 
a leave of absence, and hunt up some English relatives of ours. If 
we go — " 

"If you go you will probably see Mr. Featherstonhaugh," inter- 
rupted Saint, " but I do not expect ever to see him again." There 
was no regret in her voice as she said this, and she continued calmly, 
"All has ended very well." 

But Barbara shook her head and smiled. " If I can help it," she 
said, " this is not 



THE END." 



Baston Stereotype Foundry,, Na. 4. Pearl Street. 



^ 



( S 9[^<^ <2fe -h & 







^^' 



k\\'A 



& 



^\\V 






k . DOVER >^^ ^y^^' 







( ^ 5[^cA <J<> h ^ 







>- 



!• U )> •) 



• 



'♦ 








i 



' ]k4'<5!^^«; 



m 



